Evaluating and Explaining Climate Science

What’s the blog about?

Who’s it for?

People interested in the science behind the climate stories we read about every day. People who want to learn. People who want to contribute to other people learning about climate science.

What does the author think about Science?

Science is not a religion.

It’s good to ask questions.

Being skeptical is a positive thing.

When people of an alternative viewpoint use catchy but insulting labels for you, keep asking questions and thinking for yourself. Science isn’t settled by being able to come up with the best insults, although it can be a lot of fun – even for grown ups.

What does the author think about Climate Science?

A little more specific?

Some aspects of current “Climate Science” have become more like a faith. The science has been pressed into a political agenda and consequently the spirit of free inquiry has been squashed.

Opinions

Opinions are often interesting and sometimes entertaining. But what do we learn from opinions? It’s more useful to understand the science behind the subject. What is this particular theory built on? How long has theory been “established”? What lines of evidence support this theory? What evidence would falsify this theory? What do opposing theories say?

Anything else?

This blog will try and stay away from guessing motives and insulting people because of how they vote or their religious beliefs. However, this doesn’t mean we won’t use satire now and again as it can make the day more interesting.

Comments and Questions

These are encouraged. But check out the etiquette. Otherwise the spam filter may eat your comments for breakfast. If not, the moderator will lunch on them.

A Calmer World

It’s easy to trade blows on blogs. It’s harder to understand a new point of view. Or to consider that a different point of view might be right. And yet, more constructive for everyone if we take a moment, a day even, and try and really understand that other point of view. Even if it’s still wrong, we are better off for making the effort.

And sometimes others put forward points of view or “facts” that are obviously wrong and easily refuted. Pretend for a moment that they aren’t part of an evil empire of disinformation and think how best to explain the error in an inoffensive way.

Like this:

260 Responses

Will bookmark you, Steve, after reading your comment in WUWT.
Go well with this; and if you want to do me a real favour make the text a little blacker? Makes it far easier to flip through quickly; which is important.
(Location: Melbourne, Australia)

Hi Alf,
I might do a post on the subject in the near future. A quick comment – and I’ve seen read the post from the link you mentioned -as far as I can tell the predictions of sea level rise are reasonable if, and only if, the predictions of temperature rise are correct.

It is generally believed that the peak sea level in the last interglacial (the Eemian) was a fair bit higher than today. Which all goes to show that the climate is amazingly complicated – what caused temperatures to rise 10’C or so, and then descend back into the last ice age – then start rising 18,000 years ago?

Sea level has risen 120m since the max ice extent 18,000 years ago. If all the ice in the world melted sea level would rise another 75m. And most of the recent (150 years) sea level rise is believed to be “thermosteric”, which is the thermal expansion of water due to the increased heating. Reading Trenberth’s paper, which is very accessible to a non-specialist, gives some good insights into what is happening currently, link on the “Is climate more than weather? Is weather just noise?” recent post.

Most of the uncertainty in future sea level rise, even if we knew the future temperature exactly, comes from lack of knowledge about the melting of glaciers. In the recent (2007) IPCC report you can see very large uncertainties in Antarctica ice melt.

When speaking to people on this subject I get the sense for a “laymen’s” belief that were we to control anthropogenic CO2 emissions we will as a result eliminate climate/weather variability. The risk involved with this “belief” is we do attend to issues relating to the “robustness” of our infrastructure to handle variability -ex drought, flooding, hurricane etc.

This belief seems to be encouraged by some – perhaps as any infrastructure hardening may decrease the public’s perception of crisis. Context also seems to be a victim of the battle for public perception -as an example- California seems to be more concerned with sea level which is moving at a slower rate than a large section of its landmass is moving towards Alaska. The undifferentiated slip being some ten feet since San Francisco’s great quake some hundred years ago.

I like what I’ve read so far (skimmed at the moment), and I have you bookmarked now. I appreciate the explanatory nature of your posts when it comes to the science too. Once people have some understanding of that, they’ll be more able to recognize the facts from the falsehoods.

Scientific skepticism is at the heart of the scientific method. It is not something unusual, or something you need to call special attention to.

Every honest scientist is a skeptic, first and foremost. That fact is often lost in the catastrophic AGW debate, where skeptics are expected by those presuming to understand everything about the climate to simply accept the results of their GCMs, and to accept their peer reviewed papers – many of which are incredibly sloppy – in the climate “sciences” [see what quotation marks do?].

—- moderator deleted “motives” —-

Skeptics demand solid, empirical, testable and falsifiable evidence, showing that CO2 is a dangerous threat to the planet. Anything less would be irresponsible when trillions of dollars are being demanded, based on belief more than non-existent empirical evidence, to protect us from a minor trace gas that has been shown throughout geological history to be both harmless and beneficial.

But there is no such evidence showing that CO2 is dangerous, none at all. None. The real world evidence shows conclusively [unless you believe that there is “heat in the pipeline” lurking somewhere where it can’t seem to be found] that any warming caused by CO2 is so insignificant that it can be disregarded.

Many other factors easily overwhelm any small effect from CO2. Otherwise, as CO2 rises rapidly, the planet would be warming significantly. It is not. The planet is warming at about the same rate that it has since the LIA, despite a large increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. To people without an agenda, that would make the putative effect of CO2 appear highly skeptical.

The truly dangerous situation comes from the presumption that carbon dioxide is the driving force that will lead to runaway global warming. But evidence shows that CO2 has been many times higher than it is today, for more than a hundred million years at a time, without triggering runaway global warming. Rather, during those times of thousands of ppmv of CO2, the planet has regularly descended into Ice Ages.

Your explanations are reasonable, but the planet’s response to CO2 shows that any effects of this minor trace gas are overwhelmed by other factors. Therefore, CO2 can not be having a significant effect.

Much is missing from our understanding of the climate. But not much is missing from our understanding of human nature.

— moderator deletion of the section on human nature – in breach of the etiquette policy ———

The subject of CO2 so far explained is “uncontroversial”? To many, including myself, this is true. To many it is controversial. In any case quantifying the first-order values of radiative forcing, “saturation” or not, water vapor relative impact – these are all important for the foundations.

You are right, climate sensitivity is really the big topic. We’ll amble slowly in that direction.

Let me add my kudos for a well organized and quite informative site. Just came came across your work a couple weeks ago. The work you’ve done on explaining the science is great. Checking in a couple days ago via my I-touch and finding your site already formatted for a mobile device was even a bigger boon. Thanks for your efforts and best wishes in all your endeavors.

Genuine skeptics must challenge themselves constantly in order to build better internal correspondences to outer realities.

True believers, on the other hand, must constantly be on guard against errant thoughts or ideas. Perhaps that is why Climateaudit.org contains links to Realclimate.org and other Pachauri-approved websites and posts all comments as long as on topic and not obscene, while Realclimate.org works diligently to exclude non-sanctioned viewpoints from both links and comments.

I have read much at realclimate.org and have found all sorts of comments that are “non sanctioned”. my main complaint is that there are so many “non sanctioned” comments that they are not all responded to by the authors.
As with this blog and skepticalscience they do delete off topic and gratuitous posts.
I have found realaudit to be extremely selective in how they present information, without giving full expression of the responses from those they disagree with.
for instance the idea of “hiding the decline” being a premeditated attempt to distort the science, found the explanation in realclimate to be more than reasonable given the purpose of the graph. Mann was not sweeping something under the rug, he was just ignoring irrelevant data. Data that he and the other interested climate scientists see as an anomaly in proxy data that needs to be explained, and explained rigorously, and has been the subject of much discussion.
Unfortunately, the complexity of the science in these blogs is daunting for someone like me, who is familiar with physics, but has neither the time nor attention to understand every step.
I do have a very strong backgorund in studying bias and defensiveness and how humans rationalize and filter information to fit their ideological wolrdview.
i see aspects of this operating on all sides as this question has become totally politicized.
however I find almost no analysis or criticism of ANY skeptical arguments on sites such as climateaudit or climate-skeptic when many of the arguments are mutually exclusive. My htinking on this is that supporters of AGW have a fairly consistent theory, with wirnkles and disputes, , whereas climate skeptics have a huge range of views. As long as the view undermines the accepted consistant theory it will not be analyzed, even if it is inconsistant with all the other views. As long as the goliath of AGW is knocked off, there is no great ego loss in having the worng particular hypothesis. Whereas for supporters of AGW, there is a huge loss of ego. Therefore supporters of AGW have to fend off every criticism forever, and skeptics can hop around until they find one that sticks no matter how long it takes. This will continue for the next generation, unless there is some stark concrete evidence that totally discredits the major premise of one side or the other.
If CO2 is forcing climate change on the upper levels of the IPCC report than skeptics will just fade away and climate scisntists will feel relieved, and probably bitter. however if there is a major cooling even with increased CO2 over the next 20 years, then a revolution will have been imposed on science unlike anything since relativity and quantum mechanics, but with a much much bigger social payoff to the revolutionaries. As long as ones income is not based on climate science then there really is no down side from a purely opportunist point of view to be a skeptic, as there is a huge political movement supporting the skeptic argument that has need to have heros.
On the other side, since even if it is fundamentally correct climate scientists will be continually attacked and have their work distorted because of the complex and immense nature of the science involved. and if the more extreme predictions become reality, they will likely be villified for allowing skeptics to have postponed efforts to mediate the effect of AGW.
Of course this is the opposite conclusion that I read on most skeptic websites, who contend that climate scientists are driven by ego and money to produce the results that the political supporters of AGW want them to come to.
But it seems clear to me that if there has been a conspiracy to manipulate data to foster a false impression of CO2 forcing AGW, then within a couple of years the scientific facade will crumble completely and the largest conspiracy in scientific history will have been exposed.

I am one of those tiresome people who don’t understand scientific concepts till I have worked out the maths. Usually I get it all wrong, but then I worry about it until I understand why. I am now suffering from such an event – can you help?

Start off with “CO2 … Part 1… The Maths”
I follow all the Stefan-Boltzmann calculations, no problem.

Without the “Greenhouse” gases, we would have average temperatures of -19oC:

So, the “greenhouse gases” heat the earth’s surface up by to, say, 16oC. or 289K.

Turn to “CO2… Part 7…Benefit of using Radiative forcing…”
(And this may be where confusion sets in)

The standard definition of Radiative forcing (RF) you quote in “CO2… Part 7” is not much help at first sight.

The change in net (down minus up) irradiance (solar plus long wave; in W/m2) at the tropopause after allowing for stratospheric temperatures to readjust to radiative equilibrium, but with surface and tropospheric temperatures and state held fixed at the unperturbed values.#

I was a bit puzzled by the reference to the tropopause, but I take it that this refers to the net solar radiation, a little of which at least is absorbed by greenhouse gases on its way down, and so arrives at the surface in a modified form. The greenhouse gases are mostly to be found underneath the tropopause, and indeed most abundantly (like the rest of the atmosphere!) closer to the surface. RF is therefore calculated in terms of this net solar radiation at the tropopause.

If I understand it correctly, what we mean by RF in plainer language is:

“The amount of heat in W/m2 which is equivalent to the downward radiation of greenhouse gases, and which for purposes of calculation may be added to net solar radiation (i.e. what is not reflected away) to estimate total effective radiation at the surface, all averaged over time, latitude and all wavelengths”

This is essentially an aid to 1-dimensional approximations, which can then be made using the Stepan-Boltzmann equation.

Please correct me if I have got this wrong!

In the same posting, you calculate the ratio of Tnew to Told using 239 W/m2 as the incoming solar energy but as we see from equation (1), this would presumably give the radiative forcing if the surface temperature were -19C !

Tnew^4/Told^4 = (239 + 3.7)/239
where Tnew = the temperature we want to determine, Told = 15°C or 288K
We get Tnew = 289.1K or a 1.1°C increase.

In “Part 5” , referring to “Kiehl and Trenberth 1997” you refer in passing to 125 W/m2 “clear sky greenhouse effect”
which must be the total RF under normal conditions. K & T produced the figures of 265 (clear sky) and 235 (cloudy) W/m2 net solar irradiance – which is necessarily equal to the net terrestrial radiation at TOA. – which agrees well enough with our 239 to illustrate the following contention.

We can calculate the total RF due to greenhouse gases required to bring the temperature up to 16oC by adding it into equation (1) as “F” , where T = 289K

But if we are talking about a change in temperature caused by a change in RF, this total existing greenhouse effect seems to me to be the amount of radiation from which we ought to start. So let’s redo your calculation above with 395.5 in place of 239 ( eliminating Boltzmann’s constant as before ):
Tnew^4/Told^4 = (395.5 + 3.7)/395.5
where Tnew = the temperature we want to determine, Told = 16oC or 289K
We get Tnew = 289.67K or a 0.67°C increase for doubling existing carbon dioxide.

Likewise, calculate the change in temperature due to carbon dioxide from 1750 to 2005:
RF = 5.3(ln380 – ln280) = 1.62 W/m2
Tthen^4/Tnow^4 = (395.5 – 1.62)/395.5
We get Tthen = 289.79K, so we had a 0.3°C increase since 1750.

I am one of those tiresome people who don’t understand scientific concepts till I have worked out the maths. Usually I get it all wrong, but then I worry about it until I understand why.

I’m the same. It keeps nagging at me. I “accept” it, but then have to go back to it, and finally 3 months later I figure it out. Or if I don’t I’m never really sure I understood it right..

On the IPCC definition:

I was a bit puzzled by the reference to the tropopause..

It’s just that a standard definition is needed for comparisons. There were lots of different calculations done over a couple of decades, all arriving at slightly different values, but all using different definitions (and also using different CO2 concentrations and ignoring some less important bands like CO2 absorbing solar radiation in the 4um band).

It could be defined at the top of the stratosphere if everyone did the same thing.

But basically the main effective radiative emissions from the surface out to space take place from within the troposphere. So when we think about balancing incoming radiation with outgoing radiation adding “forcing” above the troposphere is fine.

And so..

If I understand it correctly, what we mean by RF in plainer language is..

Your plainer language is correct. And it’s really about being able to use it for 0-dimensional models. (1-d being when each layer up through the atmosphere is separately considered).

And now onto your calculations. Thanks for pointing out my sloppy work. (And check I inserted “^” in the right places in your post)

I was pleasantly surprised when my (incorrect) back of envelope calculation came out so close to the properly calculated number so threw it in.

Your analysis seems spot on. I said in part seven “It’s a rough and ready approach. It’s not quite right, but let’s see what it churns out.” So you’re not really at odds with the experts as their number comes out of a big computer using all the formulae.

Note that your calculation for current conditions won’t be quite right because CO2 is 1.7W/m^2 but total GHG effect is 2.4W.m^2. And you can’t throw the 2.4W/m^2 into the ready reckoner of 5.35ln(C/Co) because it’s only valid for CO2 (it might happen to be correct but I wouldn’t assume so).

Therefore current temps calculated from CO2 increase alone – using the Stefan Boltzmann ready reckoner – are too low by some amount.

But future temps calculated in the same way from CO2 alone – as you have done – show 0.7’C compared with 1.2’C as calculated.

There is enough of a difference to wonder why. More digging is required.

Yes, I concentrated on CO2 to keep things simple, and because it’s what everybody shouts about, and also because the Total net anthropogenic warming – after taking out cooling effects – as reported in IPCC 2007 tech. summary, (Fig TS5a page 32) is around the same value as CO2 on its own – so should at least have some value in comparing the historic calculation.

I’m glad you reckon I have grasped the thing properly, within the back-of-envelope zero-dimensional accuracy of this approach.

The problem then is to reconcile a 0.3C calculated rise in historic temperature with an observed 0.8C rise (ibid, fig TS6, page 37)

Thanks for all your digging, which has clarified much of the whole question for me.

I don’t know for sure yet.. but I expect that the Stefan-Boltzmann “zero-dimensional model” doesn’t solve the problem of temperature rise from added radiative forcing.

With no atmosphere absorbing longwave radiation the energy balance model works fine. With an atmosphere absorbing and re-emitting all the way from the troposphere to the surface in both directions, it would be a bit hopeful to think it would give the right answer. I have probably misled people because I haven’t actually seen it used to calculate the surface temp rise. Just that when I used it incorrectly it was almost right.

I have a story that’s not about weather but is something I worry about that is manifesting itself on a lot of climate blogs (not this one).
There’s a long preamble and if this whole thing is too far off topic, feel free to delete.

At the start of iraqwar there was virtually no serious information available about what was going on.
There were thousands of spouses and relatives who were desperate to know any details.
At that period of internet, there had been a recent immigration of ‘the older set’ who were not on the net for anything to do with files, html, coding, networking – they came purely to klatch. I don’t know if the word ‘pundit’ had been coined but the word ‘blog’ had arrived.

There was one site in particular where people were devoted with some intensity. Some had experience in the military so, for example, when Fisk held up a piece of a missile with a serial number on it he found in a marketplace, it wasn’t 20 minutes before we knew it was a HARM, what type of rack it was made to mount on and what aircraft that rack was for. So we didn’t wonder about the things the uninformed wondered about. We wondered if there had been a portable SAM or possibly, as one Serb told us he used to do to NATO, somebody put a microwave oven with the door propped open to simulate antiaircraft radar and draw fire.
While Steve Forbes babbled mindlessly, we were reading the daily diplomatic reports from the KGB – until Forbes finally found out that the CIA and every real reporter was also because they were real.
Forbes somehow swallowed his other foot when he babbled that Salaam Pax was a fake. He was an architect in the middle of Baghdad who posted a diary filled with details of real life for real people – Yyou Wwere Tthere. The BBC hired him later.
The agonist became the go.to site for information in the classic way we love to celebrate- ad hoc assembly and full participation in a common goal by sincerely interested.
It was ranked over Drudge for a period.
Now it’s about a liberal texan and his cat. How and why?

Wow… I dunno if I should apologize and give up, but I’ve only got a very small way through this. Should I not- guidance, please?

Well, since it can all be scrubbed away with a click, no harm done and I’ll continue just because it’s on my mind.

Agonist.org, whatever it wasn’t prior to iraqwar, became the center for fresh information – always days or weeks ahead of any news and often info that never appeared in msm.
Everybody was impressed with what they had wrought.
Having become known as a hub, everyone flocked there and the effect was amplified.

All the same self-congratulatory observations about the power of unchained information, distributed effort and the triumph of the internet were heard then as now we hear about climategate.

Along with people solely devoted to digging up information on the topic of iraqwar as it progressed, came people who are paid to write on the topic. Vanities tumesced when msm references to Agonist occasionally appeared.
Also, came those who like to think of themselves as well informed. Most of those gain some social status by being an authority, be it among a small group or large constituency. It was t-shirt selling time.

Seasons change and so do interests. Iraqwar settled into a routine very fast. The intensity of interest had to fade.
The rate of input waned. The conversational value of the information declined. Traffic plummeted.

Suddenly there was a vacuum of meaninfulness to just being part of the membership. The glory days were seen to be fading. Vanity addicts thrust about desperately for new franchises – meaninful topics to belabor in the hopes of restoring past glory before the last coals flickered out. Personalities became the main topic as infighting over control of direction and marketing of memes grew to be the overarching strategy to retain traffic for the newly acquired ad sponsors – which became the gold standard.
Where once, content was aggregated by and for the interested, now eyeballs were to be aggregated for the management for the sponsors.

Sponsors were not responsible for the decay which ensued. The topic had a natural ‘lifespan’ with respect to popular interest. So it was to be expected that it should run its course and return to a lower level than its peak.
What got it to the peak was fresh, objective content and analysis. When that ran out, then controversy was unanimously- by unspoken consensus, not explcit agreement- settled on as replacement.
However, by this time most everybody had acquired quite a lot of vocabulary and ideas about propaganda, logical fallacies, even how to deal with trolls. They were also experiencing crisis fatigue so the conventional wisdom for manipulating sheep was applied to people who could see through it.

But there had been real value – very impressive results were achieved. The site owner had his 15 minutes of fame. Unfortunately the principle that was responsible for the brilliance was not properly abstracted and identified. The greatness was not dependent on iraqwar (and certainly not the site owner). What was awesome and wonderful and good about it was the process of dissection and analysis – the intelligence. Demagogues are seriously not interested in that market.

This phenomenon shares a common basis with the eventual return to despotism following a renaissance.

Anyway, when this process begins it is marked, as mentioned, by a change from the nominal topic to statements-about-the-topic. Another symptom is the rules of behaviour become more numerous and detailed. These are signs that a a belief system is being codified into catechism. When you see the rule that specifically prohibits the typing of a particular string of characters, that is often the first righteously justified tool for removing opposition in any forum pogrom.

Even though there may be a site owner, very soon ‘experts’ begin to take up residence. You can usually spot them as section mods with 300 million power stars and 30 thousand more posts than anybody else. They don’t get a penny from the sponsors. They have completely non- pecuniary interests. You can find PhDs having insanely vicious daily battles for hearts and minds even on pet forums. What are the values they seek? Power. Vain lust for power, no matter how petty.

It feels like I’m writing a message in a bottle for a future beachcomber… Scienceofdoom, I hope you don’t mind. Just erase it if you want. Otherwised I may continue.

Ok, I deleted a whole thesis and cut to the chase. What my model of reality predicts to happen and for which I see empirical evidence of confirmation is this:

Climategate has had its play. No trophies were taken so there is no momentum and there is no more surfing on that wave.
For some really smart people, graceful retirements are not the order of the day. It’s gonna get really depressing. Everybody can’t be Susan Boyle…

Even very intelligent persons are susceptible to vanity.
In the course of human interaction, one spends more time with those who share beliefs than with those who have contrary ones when given the choice. It naturally happens that one becomes surrounded with like minded individuals.
This can, however, form an insulating layer that nothing new may enter. Deprived of daily reality checks that we all should naturally seek, fantastic notions can be arranged in amazing symmetries. A person can go mad.
A living person whom I admired very much for incredible intelligence succumbed to this. It’s a tragedy, to me, that even a hero may last but 15 minutes, no matter how great.
The achievement remains, however, and the effort that produced it exists and the admiration for that was earned.

If everyone around you seems to agree with you no matter what you say- suspect a trap. I wish I could get that message to a particular person who might possibly read this.

It was a cassandra moment. It probably gets to wear the label vain. It would probably be a further kindness to vanish it. Heroes have to rescue themselves.
I didn’t want to name the actual site and persons.
You were attempting to discuss something quite reasonably with one of them at the time, while that very smart person was using words like a dog uses urine to mark territory. It was really disappointing because – well, just because of my mistaken expectations that smarts must be due to the virtue of the possessor and be more than superficial. It’s an error I keep repeating. Eventually wisdom will emerge.

I’m very curious why you don’t identify who you are or what your credentials are anywhere on this blog. It undermines your credibility when you are a random anonymous blogger. Look at most the other reliable blogs out there. Every one of them identifies who the main author is, lists their accomplishments and gives the reader a reason to put a level of trust behind what is being written.

You might consider updating your “about this blog” section to do that.

I noticed some of the same errors that “McK”
pointed out. I think that there are others which
lie in the unnecessary assumptions you seem to have
made with respect to interpreting the historical
records of CO2 and of temp. Instead of trying to
sort all of that out, I prefer to go with a calculation
which seems to me to be quite adequate and which
derives from a complete theory as to how CO2
affects climate:

The author, Petschauer, directly calculates the change in the CO2 absorption band, due to CO2 concentration increases, using published data from a variety of trusted sources such as ERBE. On the other hand, If I correctly understand your blogs, instead of calculating the effect of CO2 increases on absorption, you assume various relationships such as logarithmic and square root.

Likewise, I think that Miskolczi with his theory of
climatic homeostasis has a really solid case that
CO2 has far, far less effect on temp. than the
IPCC speaks for. Miskolczi offers considerable
data to support his theory that the climate
maintains the atmospheric optical depth at
1.868 more or less regardless of what level
CO2 is at.

Slightly simplified, Miskolczi’s theory asserts that
the climate is ruled by the elegant and simple
equation

2 = tau + ( exp (-tau) )

where “tau” is the optical depth of the atmosphere.

(Note that the above equation, being a simplified
form of Miskolczi’s, does not give 1.867 but the close
value of about about 1.85. Getting to within 1% with
a simpler and more intuitive equation seems
acceptable to me.)

I think that there are others which
lie in the unnecessary assumptions you seem to have
made with respect to interpreting the historical
records of CO2 and of temp.

Not sure what you are talking about. Which assumptions?

The author, Petschauer, directly calculates the change in the CO2 absorption band, due to CO2 concentration increases, using published data from a variety of trusted sources such as ERBE. On the other hand, If I correctly understand your blogs, instead of calculating the effect of CO2 increases on absorption, you assume various relationships such as logarithmic and square root.

I spent some time explaining the methodology for calculating the effect of CO2, water vapor and all other trace gases on the radiative forcing at the top of atmosphere.

The people who have done the heavy lifting in this field use the radiative transfer equations to calculate the solution. Perhaps the “square root” relationship you mention is one of the band models which reduces the computational burden. But many calculations have also been done using line by line values. These are the complete spectral absorption lines for CO2 and all other gases.

The logarithmic relationship you mention from Part Seven is not “assumed”, instead it is an empirical relationship. I said:

Instead, it comes from running lots of values of CO2 through the standard 1d model we have discussed, and plotting the numbers on a graph

Well, these are the values which are prior to any feedbacks. They can be tested – and have been tested – by measuring the downward longwave radiation at the surface in each band. You can see this in Part Six – Visualization

Onto the paper you mention

From what I can see of this paper, the author doesn’t actually solve the RTE. Take a look at the Ramanathan and Coakley paper which explains how this is done. You can see it explained in Part Five

The author doesn’t comment on this method, doesn’t really explain whether or not he is considering the radiated emission from each level in the atmosphere. Perhaps he doesn’t really know what he’s doing.

If someone has a new conclusion from solving the radiative transfer equations they should explain where all the people who solved them previously went wrong.

Or if he has a new approach which doesn’t require the radiative transfer equations he should explain the new method in some detail.

As it is, I expect he is yet another person who hasn’t really understood what any of the professionals in the field have done since the 1960’s onward.

One day I will get around to working through Miskolczi’s paper. I expect it will take some time.

It seems more likely that there are mistakes buried away in the paper than the conclusion that a feedback mechanism creates exactly the right amount of water vapor in the atmosphere to compensate for changes in CO2. It’s not like they have any “direct communication” and both have lots of non-linearities (in the case of water vapor non-linear relationship in its generation as well as its effect). How could it happen?

That doesn’t mean it’s wrong – it’s possible – it just makes it harder to move the paper up the priorities.

It seems to me that the discussions and the
debates about CO2AGW are unnecessarily
intricate and abstract. For example there are
almost limitless opportunities to argue for
or against the details of Milkolczi’s Theory.
We can, however, take an alternative course.
We can, so to speak, cut the Gordian Knot by
asking a key question.

Here, IMHO, is the question most pivotal to the
current confusions about the roles of CO2:

“Yes, or “No”,
does the climate give long term negative feedback
to changes in CO2 forcing functions?

If “yes”, then sensitivity of temperature to
a doubling of CO2 is much, much lower than
the IPCC estimates, say around .4 deg. K.

“Yes, or “No”,
does the climate give long term negative feedback
to changes in CO2 forcing functions?

If “no”, then sensitivity is considerably more,
say 1.5 to 4 deg. K.

If “yes”, then the climate is homeostatic.
If “no”, then the climate is not.

“Yes, or “No”,
does the climate give long term negative feedback
to changes in CO2 forcing functions?

If “yes”, then miskolczi could well be right.
If “no”, then Miskolczi is probably wrong.

“Yes, or “No”,
does the climate give long term negative feedback
to changes in CO2 forcing functions?

If “yes”, then the GCMs used by the IPCC
are totally wrong and irrelevant because they
assume “no” is the answer.

“It’s not like they have any “direct communication” and both have lots of non-linearities (in the case of water vapor non-linear relationship in its generation as well as its effect). How could it happen?”

It happens because it is statistically required.
Purely and simply, like any other complex system,
statistics rules the climate.

Yes indeed. How could it happen.? IMHO, it happens
the same way that g ends up being exactly 1/3,
as Ramanathan so elegantlly proves. Not nearly,
not roughly, 1/3, but, exactly 1/3. Which is to say,
overarching the details of band structures, convection,
radiation, etc. is the grand science of thermodynamics.
The wv doesn’t “know” about the CO2. It doesn’t have
to. The thermodynamic balance of energies requires
that tau = 1.867. The thermodynamic requirement is
that the climate assume the most likely state.
Tau = 1.867 is the one value of optical depth which assures
that the total atmospheric energies will be in that
one distinct balance which is absolutely the most
likely. In other words Tau = 1.867 is the unique
value which gives us best satisfaction of the 2nd Law.

Moskolczi’s theory is about thermodynamics.
Moskolczi’s argument that leads to Tau = 1.867
is much akin to Ramanathans argument that
gives us g = 1/3.

Tau = 1.867 labels the state of maximum entropy.
It is a “saddlepunkt” in phase space. Miskolczi’s
paper is about thermodynamics. He doesn’t need
to know the details of band structure for it to be
true. His arguments as to climate details need not
be correct for it to be true. It is true at a deeper level, the level where the energies are in the balance that is statistically most likely.

Sure, Miskolczi could be wrong. As of now, all the
data seems to say that he is right. As of now,
he shows an overview which makes way more sense
than anything else currently available.

The climate is a large, highly complex system.
Such systems are homeostatic.
Such systems are not built of positive feedbacks.
Such systems obey Le Chatelier’s Law.

All of the above aside, I return to the assertion that
Miskolczi works from data to theory. Judge his theory
by the data.

It is hard to discuss global warming without
getting long winded. Let me try to be more concise
regarding Miskolczi’s assertion that the climate
is homeostatic with optical depth = 1.867 serving
as the set point.

I see Miskolczi’s paper as an extension of
Ramanathan’s paper wherein it is proven that
g = 1/3. Which is to say, thermodyanmic
considerations of energy balances dominate
the climate.

Miskolczi’s paper seems to have some errors
and some mistakes as he goes from interior
conclusion to interior conclusion. For example,
his use of the “Virial Theorem” seems odd, or
maybe flat wrong, but, his interior conclusion
with regard to the partitions of energy could
well still be the correct one. Data seems to
support that.

Sure, Miskolczi’s theory is far from perfect and
complete, but, IMHO, it does leas us asking
some very relevant questions

………………does he come out being right?

……………..sticking with just the thermodynamics,
is there a proof that tau = 1.867 which is as solid as
Ramanathan’s proof that g = 1/3?

………is the climate ruled by a balance of energy
flows requiring that the optical depth = 1.867?

Here are some rebuttals of Miskolzi’s science. I don’t understand the physics, even though I majored in astrophysics in college.
At the risk of oversimplifying, it seems that his premise is that the earths climate is controlled by pretty rigid homeostatic parameters. I am all for homeostasis regarding complex systems, but evveryone knows that the earths temp and climate have changed drastically. And I don;t see that his model explains this at all.
but here is one of the links I found that contends his premises undermine his resultshttp://rabett.blogspot.com/2008/06/gigo-eli-has-learned-over-years-that.html

Thanks for getting back. As it turns out, I
was already familiar with most of what
rabett. blog…… has to offer. Some of it seems
valid some not. I will give some serious
consideration to the points raised therein.
Likewise, I will continue with a skeptical study
of Miskolczi’s math.

I have a lot of trouble with how Miskolczi
derives his 2 = tau + ( exp ( -tau ) ) result.
That his derivation may be flawed, however, does not require that his results be wrong. One must remember
that his result seems to have sprung much more
from his data than from his theory. Miskolczi’s
data says

1. g = 1/3
2. tau = 1.867

Both of which results argue strongly for homeostasis.

Regardless of how good his theoretical work is,
if his data shows that

1. g = 1/3
2. Tau = 1.867

then we must seriously consider that the climate
is homeostatic and that CO2 concentration has
far less effect than the IPCC asserts.

I do not attach great importance to the possibility
that Miskolczi has either the Virial
Theorem or Kirchov’s Law wrong.
Miskolczi dose not have to be absolutely correct
in each of his steps to be correct overall. That is
to say, for example, he could have the Virial
Theorem wrong and still use the correct
partition of energies in his derivations; the minimum
entropy principle could give us the same result
that Miskolczi gets by using the Virial Theorem.

Regardless of the details of his derivation,
regardless of how he puts his theory together,
his two principal claims deserve to be evaluated.
These claims are

1. The climate energy balances
are such that g =1/3.

2. The atmospheric optical path = 1.867.

Speaking for myself, I say that the earth’s climate
is first and foremost run according to the basic
laws of thermodynamics. That there be a particular
partition of energies completely dominates all
other aspect of climate theory.

The data shows that g =1/3. It seems
very doubtful that that is coincidence.

Speaking for myself, I say that one must fully
understand Ramanathan’s derivation of
g = 1/3, before one can judge Miskolczi’s
work. I see Miskolczi’s theory to be an
attempt to apply Ramanathan’s g = 1/3
result.

We are not here really talking about Miskolczi; we are talking about Ramanathan.

We are not here really talking about tau = 1.867; we are
talking about g = 1/3.

Finally, for the climate to presently be in homeostais,
in no way precludes it from having been in
a different homeostasis, as long as that different
homeostasis follows the laws of thermodynamics.
It is common for complex systems to migrate
from one homeostasis to another.

I tried to use the email address you provided but I get the message – Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:
———————
Technical details of permanent failure:
DNS Error: Domain name not found

And I checked the email address against your paper, which is the same, and resent but still the same error.

Hi Ralph, nice to talk to someone with the courage not ot hide behend a false name. Were you aware that Sylas (see his/her comment of May 5, 2010 at 2:23 pm and mine of earlier today) has also tried to refute your paper (seehttp://climatephysicsforums.com/topic/3292392/1/).

I am the admin at Climate Physics Forums, a new bulletin board for discussion of climate science. I am also a co-author of the formal rebuttal recently published in IJMP(B), and I started the thread Pete links above.

I have already emailed Dr Tscheuscher and Dr Gerlich back on May 9th, at the time I started that discussion, as a professional courtesy. I used my real name, and also advised them of the pen-name that I use consistently on the internet. I let them know of the thread you mention.

Dr Tscheuschner indicated to me at the time that he preferred to keep his focus on peer reviewed literature, and this is a perfectly legitimate choice.

I do not actually expect this notion that the atmospheric greenhouse effect has been falsified to attract any attention in the peer reviewed literature, and I expect it will continue to be described in basic texts of atmospheric physics as it has been now for decades, using well established and completely uncontroversial thermodynamics and radiation physics.

Pete, I have also replied to your post at that bulletin board in the form of a PM. Thanks for the note!

You (or anyone) is welcome to come and engage there, or not. The board does not make any presumptions or requirements for the views of members. Board policy takes no position on the substance of science that will be discussed. It is primarily intended for interested amateurs to discuss and learn about the work in climate science that is being published by working publishing scientists; but it is not suitable for working scientists to be publishing new work. We do have some climate scientists interested, and likely to engage subject to time constraints, but this would be for explaining the work at a level for lay readers, not for publishing new results.

I am looking forward reading to what appears to be a reasoned, calm and thought provoking blog.

I would encourage you to be rigorous in maintaining the same level of decorum here as if people were conversing face to face. I say ‘face to face’ as it is quite easy to remain respectful of an opposing opinion or statement of fact yet disagree or counter strongly. When this is achieved I feel that conversations are lengthened and as a result more information is shared which can only be a good thing.

You say a lot of really excellent things here about how to discuss science and think about it. Kudos.

Could you please email me, if you would be willing to make contact that way? You can reach me by emailing “admin at climatephysicsforums”. This is the email for a new climate bulletin board I am setting up, and there are strong parallels between what we are trying to do. So I would like to discuss more with you about it, if you are willing.

Just putting my head over the parapet to say ‘hello’ as I have been directed here from Skeptical Science.
Looking forward to reading some of your archived materials even though I am a Landscape Ecologist and Ecosystems Researcher in my spare time. Have many contacts who will probably all want to look in and read the latest view points.

Just wanted to say I really like and appreciate your fundamental approach on explaining the basics of climate science. Keep up the good work! I hope you will be able to keep a level perspective in this interesting science field where everybody seems to have become an “expert” and has extremely strong opinions about.

Hunt, may I make a suggestion, that you first satisfy yourself that there really will be some significant sea level rise by 2100. The measurements that have been attempted are, like global temperature and CO2 measurements are highly suspect, as are the statistical manipulations used as the basis for the conclusions drawn to support the UN’s propaganda about our use of fossil fuels is driving us towards catastrophic global climate change.

The projections for 2100 are derived from computerized climate models that are based upon contentious scientific principles, have never been subjected to independent, professional Verification, Validation and Test (VV&T) procedures. The UK Met. Office’s computer model is the same one as is used for weather forecasting and they have given up providing medium-term forecasts for only months ahead yet they pretend that it is easier to project 90 years ahead.

There is no good reason to believe that sea levels will be significantly different in 2100 that they are today. They could be the same, higher or lower, we just do not know, so all that we can do is take REASONABLE precautions to cover any eventuality.

If you come across anything that shows convincingly that what I say is incorrect then please let me know, but I haven’t found any yet.

I have to take issue with James Kennedy’s view that “it doesn’t matter if parts of Miskolczi’s work is wrong, if parts of it are right.”

Miskolczi presented a thesis that criticizes fairly basic results of climate science. In order for such a critique to be valid, it has to be coherent, to hang together.

It doesn’t. A year or so ago, there was a small online discussion group contending over the validity of Miskolczi’s paper. Many conceptual errors and inconsistencies were identified. I personally drafted a letter describing the problems I encountered within the first 10 pages (I did not see much reason to go on, until these basic points could be clarified), and sent this to Miskolczi. He acknowledged the letter but never really addressed the issues.

In the end, the anti-Miskolczi folks got bored and left; and the pro-Miskolczi geared up to create a clearer presentation of the paper. After several months, they gave up when they realized that they themselves did not understand what he was doing well enough to explain and promote it.

I have a contract to write, for McFarland & Co., an American publisher, an introductory survey on sea level rise due to global warming.

Because I’m a generalist not a scientist, I want to as certain as possible that what I write is accurate. Towards this end, I’m looking for readers who will — free of charge –read my chapters very critically as I crank them out and will give me their candid opinions.

Hunt, I’ve nearly completed an article “Death by Drowning – The Next Phase of Indoctrination? Part 2″ for my Global Political Shenanigans” blog (http://globalpoliticalshenanigans.blogspot.com/). I talk about your proposed book “Rising Sea Levels”, the degree (lack?) of expertise in the subject that you and Ursula Carlson have and the motivation of publishers McFarland & Co. Would you and Ursula like to see the draft before I post it?

You may also like to take a look at “Death by Drowning – The Next Phase of Indoctrination? Part 1” which covers the climate change scare stories published by the UK’s Bloomsbury plc.

There is no good reason to believe that sea levels will be significantly different in 2100 that they are today. They could be the same, higher or lower 70-443, we just do not know, so all that we can do is take REASONABLE precautions to cover any eventuality.

I hope I’m going about this correctly but I’d like you to consider posting my blog on your site.

I’ve searched the Internet for an explanation how greenhouse gases cause the stratosphere to cool and found them lacking. To be honest, I was not able to understand any of them and once I realized what was happening, I decided to write my own blog.

It has been published at the Skeptical Science Website. Here is the link:

I’m sorry but I forgot to mention that I emailed Real Climate received a comment from Gavin Schmidt. Predicated upon his response and additional research, I wrote my blog. I’ve included this email below.

Regards,
Bob

mostly right. You miss two key facts. First, all GHGs emit as well as
absorb, and whether you will get warming or cooling in a region depends on
the ratio of the change in absorption and the change in emittence.

Second, the troposphere has many IR absorbers, the stratosphere only two
(CO2 and O3 – everything else is minor). So the impact of CO2 above the
tropopause is amplified.

Otherwise you are spot on!

Gavin

> Hi,
>
> I’ve searched for an explanation of the reason that the Stratosphere cools
> due to Global Warming and have not found a satisfactory answer. There
> does seem to be quite a bit of hand waving though.
>
> I think that I now understand it but would like the confirmation of a
> professional. If my understanding is correct, I would like to write a
> blog on this most misunderstood subject.
>
> Please confirm if this is correct.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Robert Guercio
>
> The earth radiates Infrared Radiation in accordance with Black Body
> theory. Most of the IR energy absorbed by CO2 has wave numbers of
> approximately 650 and 1050. There is CO2 in both the troposphere and the
> stratosphere so frequencies associated with these wave numbers emanating
> from the heated earth heat up both the troposphere and the stratosphere.
> Frequencies of all other wave numbers simply sail on through without
> effecting either layer.
>
> If there is more CO2 in the troposphere, more of a chunk of the spectrum
> is going to be taken out around these two wave numbers in heating up the
> troposphere. Therefore, there is less energy in these two IR bands to heat
> up the CO2 in the stratosphere and thus the stratosphere cools.
>

Let me add my voice to Arjan’s and say that I am deeply impressed by the high quality (and quantity!) of your work. Your explanations are clear, accurate, and reasonably concise. But please don’t apologize for the mathematics!

I am very impressed with the open professionalism you and this website have shown. Something that the AGW treehuggers do not abide by. Science is NOT decided upon a vote or by an “expert”. It is through zealous testing and continual skeptisim. There is no good or evil in science.

However, I would ask you this question:

On a glance it would seem that radiative forcing downwards (back to the Earth) goes against the first and second laws of thermodynamics.

I’m just having a bit of fun with R and thought I would share my results. Maybe someone might find this interesting.

The following link shows a couple of graphs plotting the seasonal amplitude in Potential Temperature for Argo and GFDL at different depths. The samples were taken at 45 degrees north and south. The associated R code is also listed.

“Quick reading of that paper provided and my comments are: It assumes a static single layer atmosphere. Takes a single measurement then extrapolates the measurement into an unwarrented position.

It does not take into account that any atmosphere with warming ground below it will produce convection, air undergoing convection will cool adiabaticly with expansion as it rises. This the process that causes the lapse rate in the troposphere.

They seem to be measuring downwelling long wave radiation much of which will be coming from the mid troposphere and seeing it is cooler than the surface (as it should be) then assuming the CO2 is causing this cooling.

That is just a quick summary and they do a very poor job of explaining what assumptions they have made.”

While not exepecting you do ‘do my homework for me’ type thing can I just ask which silly mistakes I have made in this response? Atmospheric physics is not my subject.

One of our regular commenters, DeWitt Payne, has tried in vain to explain to the writer of that paper how he has made his flaws. I’m not sure whether it was the exact same paper, but definitely the content and methods are similar.

In essence, Nahle doesn’t seem to understand that path length is important. He keeps claiming he does.

He calculates that atmospheric CO2 will create almost no radiation, and is unable to explain why the big bump in the downward atmospheric radiation around 15um. In fact, he didn’t appear to understand the point at all – as you can see by following the comments.

Feel free to come back with more questions if that discussion doesn’t help.

This is certainly a unique approach to the topic. I have always had a skeptical view with regards to the politics of this issue and every time I have tried to simply discuss the theories, science and conclusions, people get mired in the resulting politics of the data.

This has been one of the most effective sites in allowing me to digest the distinctions of the complicated information in a coherent sense. For example, intuitively I believed that there was a difference between “greenhouse gas theory” and “AGW”, but never had the information distilled in a way that my mind could make the distinction.

Just a quick question, what exactly is the blog site owners background. It is obvious he has a significant background in science and math, but I cant seem to find any information with regards to his actual credentials. Did I miss something?

I completely agree with your stance on credentials. Good credentials of the author are only a rule of thumb indicator of value. Didn’t the Greeks, 2300 years ago, conclusively demonstrate that the argument from authority is the absolutely worst form of proof?

I’m an AGW agnostic, leaning strongly toward it. More than anything, I’m always looking to find another thoughtful forum, dealing civilly and predominantly with just the science, but with a high degree of credibility and competence. Yours is a HUGE and welcome addition, possibly the best. Thanks!

I use about a dozen pro-AGW, pro_IPCC sites that I’ve found worthwhile, re: competence, credibility, thoughtfulness, honesty and civility. (My experience seems to be the opposite of Allan Hopper above.)

Out of frustration, it’s been a while since I’ve even looked for a truly worthwhile skeptical/—-ist [moderator’s note – please note the Etiquette] site. I’ve noted your “Climate Websites” list. WUWT I usually hit only as a link from somebody rebutting them. I occasionally try them out, but usually end up underwhelmed (esp. after reviewing other site’s analysis of their science), and then wondering if they’re as good as it gets? Similar for Climate Audit (which also seems to me to nibble around the edges).

Regardless of your own position, which of the skeptical/—-ist sites do you consider to good, better, best or worthwhile? (I’m not yet know how to classify Pielke, Sr., but personally find him worthwhile.)

I accept what appears to be a high level of competence and credibility, yet I’m also naturally curious as to your own credentials. But I accept your answer to Darren.

I find useful material in many blogs from “both sides” of the climate debate. The problem is that there aren’t two sides. There is a spectrum of opinion. Take, for example, Roger Pielke Sr’s site, I have learnt quite a bit from the papers he has linked from there, and from the articles that he has written. He has a wealth of knowledge and understanding of boundary layer meteorology. But his viewpoint can’t really be described as an “anti-AGW” perspective. I would love to know as much about boundary layer meteorology as Roger Pielke Sr. An impossible goal.

I like Lucia’s blog a lot (the Blackboard) because she posts interesting articles about statistics and explains difficult subjects well. I have read her blog less lately, not sure whether that is because of lack of postings, subjects I am not so interested in, or because I have been more wrapped up in atmospheric physics textbooks and papers about water vapor feedback. Lucia describes herself as a “lukewarmer”.

There are plenty of blogs that post regularly from what I can only describes as “anti-physics” viewpoints. Sadly, they don’t realize it so I won’t name them. Many articles, each with contradictory viewpoints, and all cheered by the same audience. If the conclusion is a good one..

Many other blogs post observations or opinions and less on the fundamental science. Opinions are 10 a penny, although sometimes interesting.

These days I read less blogs and more textbooks and lots of papers.

Not much point commenting on my own credentials because they are so much less than the people that I learn from. The point is that I can easily say – “Look here are 10 professors of physics who state this” – and the response will be “They are climate scientists! Can’t trust them. They don’t understand anything!”

In any case the point is:
– What can be proven?
– What can be demonstrated?
– What can at least be seen as a plausible hypothesis that deserves more consideration?

And not:
– “What is the title of the person making the claim?”

I am as happy to evaluate the claims of a Dr. Miskolczi, or a William Gilbert as I am a Prof. Richard Lindzen or a Prof. V. Ramanathan.

Many people want to understand climate science and the evidence that supports certain claims of the climate science community. In many blogs they are treated with disdain, and bad motives are ascribed to them because they ask questions.

That is why I started this blog. If it has helped a little in that goal then it has been worth the effort. I am not trying to convince the “convinced”.

I also have questions. Finding answers, presenting them and having them questioned by a “skeptical” audience is definitely a worthwhile pursuit in itself.

I just found this site and it is a breath of fresh air. I, too, am in search of scientific answers that are not premised upon or inter-laced with “wishful thinking.” “Just the facts, ma’am.” And I believe that ideas and opinions could and should be stated respectfully, without all of the hysterics.

My education is in Geology (and German) in the 70s. I remember back then that Continental Drift was just being accepted by the scientific community. If you look in pre-70s literature, Alfred Wegner (one of the fore-most proponents of continental drift) was ALWAYS spoken of as a great GEOGRAPHER (which he absolutely was) with crazy ideas about continental drift – from the 70s on – he is mentioned as a forward-thinking GEOLOGIST (a promotion, you see, because “everyone knows” that geograghy in not a “real,” “hard,” science like geology is…). My, how opinions change.

Interestingly, I came to this site investigating the 2 diagrams of the Global Energy Budget – the NASA one without Back Radiation and the 1997 Kiehl and Trenberth version that includes it – in response to a user’s question about the difference.

Here at NASA (yep, that’s right), both diagrams have been attributed to Kiehl and Trenberth, but that is by word-of-mouth. I don’t see it written anywhere here. Don’t suppose you’d know?

I would like to echo the appreciative comments by Shelama above: your blog has become the place to find careful, critical appraisals of the science of climate change. The beauty of the physics is – to me – the reason to study The Science of Doom. A well written, interesting read!

As mentioned before on Bart’s blog, please take care in the amazingly vitriolic debate about climate change. I know how grating it can be, after a while.

On that note – I’m really worried about the ‘Recent Comments’ pane added at the top of the navigation bar. It focuses way too much attention on the ‘true or false’ bipartisan arguing and bickering, which can be so boring and which does not promote insight into the science at all. There is an endless multitude of places on the Internet where people can argue – there is only ONE blog I know where the physics is explored in such a carefully argued way: TSOD!

Since it is *your* blog, of course it is up to you how to direct it and whom you wish to aim for. I would respectfully suggest either demoting the ‘Recent Comments’ pane below ‘Pages’, ‘Recent Posts’ or ‘Categories’, or maybe simply deleting it.

This might refocus the attention on THE SCIENCE, on your excellent articles and especially on the interlinked series accessible through ‘Pages’.

Of course, some of your commenters like DeWitt Payne and Neal J. King are a true asset. They add perspective, give great suggestions and correct mistakes!

New Judith Curry Interview Just Published: The IPCC May Have Outlived its Usefulness

Dear Steve,

I just wanted to send you a quick mail to let you know that we have conducted a very interesting interview with the well known climatologist Judith Curry.
It’s a very balanced interview and I thought you and your readers may be interested in reading about Judith’s concerns for climate science, how climate change is affecting the planet, reasons for the increase in scepticism and why climate scientists have lost touch with the public.

Q. You have said in the past that you were troubled by the lack of cooperation between organizations studying climate change, and that you want to see more transparency with the data collected. How do you suggest we encourage/force transparency and collaboration?
Q. Do you feel climatologists should be putting more effort into determining the effect of the sun on our climate? As the IPCC primarily focuses on CO2 as the cause of climate change – Is the importance of CO2 overestimated and the importance of the sun is underestimated?
Q. What are your views on the idea that CO2 may not be a significant contributor to climate change?

This may not be the right place to post a question – if so, please excuse me but I have not managed to find a better spot on your site.

Do you have any discussion of the dynamics of carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and the rest of the earth, with the combination considered as linear (or perhaps a nonlinear) dynamic system, enabling questions such as the time response of atmospheric CO2 to be calculated, following (say) injection of a pulse of CO2 into the atmosphere?

Martin: Chapter 6 of the IPCC’s first report has a nice clear chapter on the time course of the response to CO2 forcing. The lag between transient and equilibrium climate sensitive increases with climate sensitivity. When the concentration of CO2 doubles over 70 years, the transient response is about 80% (+1.2 degC) of the equilibrium response, if the model’s equilibrium climate sensitivity for 2X CO2 is 1.5 degC; but only about 50% (+2.3 degC) of equilibrium response, if the model’s equilibrium climate sensitivity for 2X CO2 is 4.5 degC.

Martin: Chapter 6 of the IPCC’s first report has a nice clear chapter on the time course of the response to CO2 forcing. The lag between transient and equilibrium climate sensitive increases with climate sensitivity. When the concentration of CO2 doubles over 70 years, the transient response is about 80% (+1.2 degC) of the equilibrium response, if the model’s equilibrium climate sensitivity for 2X CO2 is 1.5 degC; but only about 50% (+2.3 degC) of equilibrium response, if the model’s equilibrium climate sensitivity for 2X CO2 is 4.5 degC.

Frank – Thank you for the references. However, Sciencefdoom has understood exactly what I am actually looking for.

I want to understand the dynamics of how CO2 is interchanged between the atmosphere and other reservoirs of CO2.

This would answer questions such as:

– If one night I injected a negative impulse of CO2 (by magically removing 10% of all CO2 molecules in the atmosphere), what would be the subsequent response of the system?

– To what extent can the system be considered linear? (So that linear system theory can be used to compute how it would respond to inputs more complex than a single impulse.)

– What errors are incurred by approximating the system by one having a single time constant? (Equivalent to describing it by a first order linear differential equation, where the response to an impulse can only be a simple decaying exponential.)

The sources and sinks in the ocean and the biosphere have some non-linear dependencies and include a dependence on temperature.

I’m not sure about your background in this field.
In general, for learning about new fields I find that a) textbooks and b) old papers, are indispensable.

IPCC reports can be useful in that they state the current climate science consensus and provide many references. But for the newcomer you need some context. And that usually comes in old papers. So generally I use Google Scholar and find a number of papers, start reading and find the common papers that are referenced from some time before.

For example, using Google Scholar and searching for “review co2 concentration atmosphere” I found Atmospheric carbon dioxide and the ocean by U. Siegenthaler & JL Sarmiento from Nature (1993). This seems like an interesting paper. Perhaps another 10 papers from some time ago and you will have a good starting point.

For textbooks I remember some content on this subject in Handbook of atmospheric science: principles and applications, C. N. Hewitt, Andrea V. Jackson (2003). And checking in books.google.com I see that Chapter 4 does have some content on this.

It says (I’ve simplified the notation)
“…the decay of a pulse of CO2 with time t is given by

0.22 + 0.26 exp(-t/173) + 0.34 exp(-t/18.5) + 0.19 exp (-t/1.19)”

This got me really curious for several reasons:

– There are published suggestions that this IPCC result gives a mean residence time for CO2 that disagrees very greatly with many published results based on physical measurements.

– Physical systems that can have an impulse response like this (a sum of simple exponentials) seem to me to be quite different from an intercoupled network of CO2 reservoirs. But maybe it’s an approximation that gives useful accuracy.

– Some time back, I looked at plots of the removal of C14 from the atmosphere after the cessation of atmospheric nuclear tests. This was, as precisely as you could imagine, a simple exponential with a time constant of a decade or so.

When I asked some questions to reconcile this with figures differing very greatly, I was given explanations that seemed to me to confuse what happens in a system in dynamic equilibrium with what happens in a system after a transient has been injected.

So there are a number of things that seem to contradict each other and, from curiosity, I’d like to make sense of them and to form my own opinion on what the reality is.

This is where I find the IPCC reports not so helpful – “The state of the science with some simplified solutions or a handy ready reckoner”.

But finding how the simplified solution was arrived at is often very difficult. Read the papers cited in the IPCC chapter and they are the papers which have followed many decades of work. All of the assumptions, presuppositions and earlier work that created a theoretical foundation that led to those final papers cannot be traced back without lots of work.

Fortunately Google Scholar now has a large number of free papers linked and the number seems to be growing continually. Still I am fortunate to be able to read papers behind paywalls. Without that I’m not sure how easy it would be to make all the connections between and past and current work necessary to understand the soundness or otherwise of “consensus science”.

Martin: No one here seems to have mentioned the basic fact that the rate of anthropogenic emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere has typically been twice the rate of accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. (Current annual anthropogenic emissions, ca 10 PgC, 1 Pg is 5.3 ppm.) In other words, if CO2 levels are 20 ppm higher today than a decade ago, we emitted enough anthropogenic CO2 to have raised CO2 levels by 40 ppm and 20 ppm of today’s 400 ppm will have disappeared in sinks in the meantime. I remember reading a paper demonstrating that accumulation have been about 50% of emission for many decades.

The IPCC presents the future in terms of emission scenarios, but it isn’t clear what “accumulation scenario” is projected for each emission scenario. The relationship between emission and accumulation is created by each GCM and I once failed (after a modest effort) to find any useful information on this subject: inter-model comparisons, ability to reproduce the historic record, and uncertainty. Do the current sinks saturate? Does the factor of one-half stay constant?

Many thanks for all your help. I’ll do some reading and make some calculations of my own. It seems certain, from the level of discussion that can be found on the internet, that not everyone is agreed about the physical effects.

I’m not now in a position to have free access to stuff behind paywalls. Even my own published papers are not accessible to me, which seems a bit strange somehow.

@Serioso

Many thanks for the reference. I’m going to read it carefully and critically but, from a first look, it seems to make a lot of sense. Also, so far as I can see at an initial quick look, it is consistent with the post atmospheric nuclear testing C14 record – which implies dynamics described by a first-order linear differential equation.

In any physical system, there is no limit to the complexity of its dynamics if you go looking for complexity. But very often, especially if you are interested in a limited range of timescales, then a 1st order model is entirely adequate.

The residence time of a single carbon atom in the atmosphere is short, on the order of 5 years. But that’s because the flows into and out of the atmosphere are large. You have exchange with inorganic carbon in the ocean and with organic carbon in the biosphere. That’s why 14C from nuclear weapons decays quickly. But it doesn’t disappear, except by radioactive decay, it mainly dissolves in the ocean.

A relatively small amount of carbon is lost by deposition on the ocean floor every year and an approximately equal amount is introduced from volcanoes and other geologic sources. So the turnover time for the total surface carbon reservoir, the vast majority of which is in the ocean, is quite long, on the order of hundreds of thousands to millions of years. It took about 120,000 years for the injection of carbon during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum to decay back to steady state.

A rapid injection of carbon from, say, fossil fuel burning will cause a relatively rapid increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. When we finally run out of or stop using fossil fuels, the CO2 level will drop again, but not all the way back to the preindustrial level because the total amount of carbon in the surface reservoirs has increased. Atmospheric CO2 is in equilibrium with these reservoirs.

I think it may address the 50% question. Basically, only half of anthropomorphic carbon shows up as an increase in atmospheric CO2; the other half is presumably stored in plants or absorbed by the oceans.

Serioso: I realize that the sinks for the “missing” CO2 must be plants or the ocean. Given the lack of publicity about the two-fold difference between emission and accumulation in the atmosphere, I’ve always wondered what might be hiding, but I certainly haven’t done enough reading. I just reviewed Section 7.3 of AR4 on the carbon cycle and Figure 7.13 appears to be most relevant to analyzing how well models have predicted the past and how differently they predict the future.

>> The residence time of a single carbon atom in the atmosphere is short, on the order of 5 years.(…).

With C14 half life >5000yr, we can forget radioactive decay for now.

So far as I can see, the half life a single 14C O2 molecule in the atmosphere will be the same as the half life of a moderate size pulse of injected 14C O2 and (neglecting the differences due to the 46/44 ratio in molecular weights) the same as the half life of an injected pulse of 12C O2.

But some comments I have seen elsewhere seem to imply that the disappearance of an injected pulse is slowed because many molecules absorbed from the atmosphere are replaced by molecules transiting in the other direction. This seems to me erroneous. So far as I can see, (assuming things are more or less linear) the dynamics of an injected pulse are unaffected by an ongoing dynamic equilibrium between atmosphere and ocean+biosphere, which will continue independently and concurrently.

>>(…). When we finally run out of or stop using fossil fuels, the CO2 level will drop again, but not all the way back to the preindustrial level because the total amount of carbon in the surface reservoirs has increased. Atmospheric CO2 is in equilibrium with these reservoirs.

Yes, it is clear that, if you have two reservoirs in dynamic equilibrium, neither of which are infinite, then injecting additional CO2 into one will change the levels at which they both finally find their new equilibrium.

News Tip – The Limitless Potential of the E-Cat: An Interview with Andrea Rossi

Dear Steve

I wanted to get in touch as we were fortunate enough to interview the media shy Andrea Rossi, creator of the E-Cat this week and i thought you and your readers may be interested in hearing what he had to say.

Mr. Rossi appears to have produced the first working “cold” fusion device, or low energy nuclear reaction (LENR), with his Energy Catalyser (E-Cat) machine. The E-Cat machine could provide almost limitless, clean, cheap energy and could prove to be one of the greatest inventions of all time.

We are sending you this because we were hoping you have something to contribute to a new web page we have just launched: warmingcheck.org

The purpose behind WarmingCheck.org is to collect good arguments regarding global warming, and let the public be able to compare arguments against each other.
By using that approach we believe people will start to see the science behind each side, and base their opinion/belief on the science and not what the media tells them.

We don’t want to influence the public with our own arguments, since it can be regarded as influencing one view.
We therefore hope you would have the time to an argument (or more) to one of the questions.

If you don’t have the time or energy for this, we thank you for reading this and hope you might be able to forward it to someone who you think might have something to contribute.

We have just published a very interesting interview with Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond which I thought would be a very good fit for your readers. In the interview we talk to Alex about Scotland’s renewable energy plans, Independence and what it will mean for Scotland, Donald Trump and many other topics:

In the interview Alex talks about the following and much more:

• How Scotland will achieve its ambitious renewable energy targets.
• The impact North Sea oil and gas revenues would have on an independent Scotland.
• How Scotland can become the green energy capital of Europe.
• Donald Trump’s recent tantrum over offshore wind energy.
• The impact Independence would have on the Scottish economy.
• Why companies are continuing to invest in Scotland’s renewable energy sector.
• Why Scotland would establish an oil fund and how it would be used.
• Why the shale revolution will not affect investment in Scottish renewables.
• The recent partnership between Scotland and Abu Dhabi.
• How Scotland will achieve its ambitious renewable energy targets.

Sadly the interview is not available for publication in its entirety – but we are happy for you to use extracts if you feel they are of benefit and interest to your readers.

I just wanted to send you a quick mail to let you know that we have conducted a very interesting interview with the well known environmentalist Bill McKibben.
It’s an interesting interview and one I thought could work for your readers.

• Why the West should fund the development of renewable energy in India and China.
• How we can help solve the Earth’s climate problems.
• Why Obama needs to step up his game.
• Big oil’s success at keeping climate change out of the headlines.
• Why he fears Keystone XL will shortly be pushed through.
• Why we have to massively deploy clean energy technology Now!
• His views on the Canadian oil sands.
• The economic impact of a massive transition to renewables.

I’ve read some of the articles here from time to time. Thanks for the clarity!

I’m on a bit of a quest – and wonder if its rather a wild goose chase – for scientific studies documenting lab experiments like Angstrom’s, or like those experiments you see on youtube, testing the greenhouse concept.

Looking for ’empirical evidence’ of the greenhouse effect when skeptics have said there is none, I have passed on info about satellite mesaurements of changing radiance in the atmosphere and detailed studies of GHG absorption properties, referred to the HITRAN dstabase…. But looking for papers on a basic lab experiment – introducing CO2 into a volume of air and measuring the radiance/temperature changes – I could find virtually nothing (except Angstrom, thanks to realclimate).

When skeptics glaze at mention of radiation properties or radiance changes, I sometimes point them at ’empirical evidence’ of those youtube experiments. But they complain, not without justification, that the experiments aren’t rigorous enough.

Are there more tightly controlled, sophisticated physical experiments of this sort in the sicentific literature? Or is it a bit like writing a paper on the concept of steam being produced by heated water?

An interesting question. It makes me wonder whether I should write an article on this specific point.

In Kramm & Dlugi On Dodging the “Greenhouse” Bullet I put forward the fact that the total emission of radiation from the surface of the earth was much greater than the total emission of radiation from the top of atmosphere and this proved there was a greenhouse effect.

Kramm himself joined the discussion but never commented on this point. It’s clear (to me) why he didn’t.

However, we can’t produce “an experiment” for this point, only a summation of proof.

I’m not a great student of the history of science but I expect that this is no different from Galileo or Kepler in their day, and for those who backed up their theories many decades later.

A scientific theory must be a falsifiable theory. The total emission of radiation from the surface of the earth being much greater than the total emission of radiation from the top of atmosphere is a falsifiable theory.

Once this is accepted then it demonstrates an effect. The next point would be the spectrum of OLR and of surface DLR matching radiative transfer theory to prove that “greenhouse” gases are the principle cause of this.

“I put forward the fact that the total emission of radiation from the surface of the earth was much greater than the total emission of radiation from the top of atmosphere and this proved there was a greenhouse effect. ”

The fact that more energy circulates in a system than gets topped up by the ‘supply’ does not in itself prove a ‘greenhouse effect’.

One example from mechanics
A child on a swing;
There is much more Potential Energy to Kinetic Energy changes in the system than the periodic push which compensates for energy losses.

Example from electricity
A tuned LCR circuit has much more energy circulating in the system than is flowing into the circuit to make up for losses.

I don’t think that describing laboratory experiments would be useful. The real connection from laboratory experiments to understanding atmosphere goes trough mainstream textbook level physics. The laboratory scale experiments can never study the full atmosphere they study always small scale phenomena.

Requirements for more laboratory experiments and more discussion of them is based on lack of understanding of physics as a science. In physics we have very good theories that can be used to understand and analyze very many phenomena at all scales. These theories have been thoroughly confirmed at laboratory scale by laboratory experiments and the validity of the theories is also confirmed by a huge number of observations at scales that cannot be brought to laboratory.

The problem with skeptics is that they don’t understand how confirmed theories are used for situations that cannot be brought to laboratory. Some of them do desktop experiments that they interpret incorrectly to prove something about climate and require that the scientists should follow the same approach without realizing that the whole idea is wrong. Those particular issues have already been answered by physics to the extent possible and new experiments on those lines have zero value as additional evidence.

What is difficult is mostly not the physics at the level that can be studied in laboratories, it’s understanding, how this physics can be used on atmospheric scales. Physics can tell with high certainty some things but we cannot get all important answers from physics alone. Some of those issues can still get additional information from laboratory experiments. The CERN Cloud experiment is an example on what can still be done in the laboratory as there are many gaps in the micro level understanding of aerosol formation, but mostly the relevant new empirical data is obtained from observations of the real Earth system rather than from laboratory.

But looking for papers on a basic lab experiment – introducing CO2 into a volume of air and measuring the radiance/temperature changes – I could find virtually nothing (except Angstrom, thanks to realclimate).

The issue here is that the proven properties of air with CO2 (note 1) don’t create a ‘greenhouse’ effect in a small scale lab experiment. It needs an atmosphere with a vertical range in km’s. This is a similar point to Pekka’s excellent comment above.

The inappropriately-named ‘skeptics’ of the ‘greenhouse’ effect have a multitude of contradictory theories and propositions, some of the time a confused mishmash of real physics, and the rest a basic misunderstanding what the ‘greenhouse’ effect is and what physics phenomena actually contribute in what way to its creation.

Note 1: these properties are the low absorptivity of the atmosphere at solar wavelengths (0-4 μ) and the much higher absorptivity at terrestrial wavelengths (4-100 μ)

“I don’t think that describing laboratory experiments would be useful.”

Perhaps not to climate researchers. But in the semi-popular debate critics often enough claim that there is no “empirical evidence” that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere will make much, if any, difference to global temperature.

The physics-based evidence described above and elsewhere doesn’t penetrate. A clear demonstration of heating of a volume of air filling with CO2, an experiment that people on the blogs occsssionally say has been performed ‘countless times in high school labs’, under tightly controlled conditons – or better yet a handful of studies doing just this – might mend a gap in the chain linking the physics for people who are unconvinced by arcana.

If, according to realclimate, “Koch and Ångström had examined the changes over the range between a 10cm and 1 meter tube, they probably would have been able to determine the correct law for increase of absorption with amount, despite the primitive instruments available at the time,” did no one later take up that experiment and do it properly? For an example.

The problem is that the laboratory experiment that you mention does not work. CO2 in a laboratory scale setting does not cause GH effect. One cannot prove or disprove the GHE by any direct laboratory experiment, because GHE is inherently an effect that requires something like the full atmosphere.

For GHE we need a large volume that’s heated from below and that is cooled by radiation from the top. The dimensions must be large in comparison with the mean free path of the IR radiation and large enough to have a large difference in the density between the bottom and the top.

Laboratory experiments can be used to measure the absorption by CO2 as function of wavelength. That information can be put in the analysis of a model atmosphere of realistic dimensions. When that is combined with thermodynamics that tells that an atmosphere heated from below maintains an lapse rate close to adiabatic over a wide range of altitudes, we can finally understand why we have the GHE.

Laboratory experiments are used to measure the absorption of different gases like CO2 and water vapor. Laboratory experiments have also been used to confirm theories of thermodynamics and interaction of radiation with gas molecules. These are things that can be done – and have been done – in laboratories, but we cannot create atmospheric GHE in laboratory. Everything that can be done in laboratory differs in essential ways from the mechanisms of atmospheric GHE because no laboratory has a very wide laboratory hall that extends to the upper levels of the atmosphere. Even in a deep mine shaft it’s probably impossible to build an experimental setting that could mimic closely enough the nature of the atmosphere because the walls of a long vertical pipe could not be prevented from changing the outcome too much.

All the laboratory experiments that are needed to confirm the GHE have been done, but none of them sees it directly.

It is not always possible to test a conjecture by a laboratory experiment.
This method for instance is not available to the science of astronomy.

However by careful observation and study, meaningful conclusions can still be drawn.

In the case of climate science the greenhouse theory conjecture proposes that adding CO2 to the atmosphere will result in significantly increased near surface temperatures.
The theory gives a reason for the IPCC to propose a major cut in man made CO2(ACO2) emissions to stop the temperature rising alarmingly.

What is the the climatic evidence to support this conjecture?

Well between 1970 and the late 1990ies increasing ACO2 and global average near surface temperatures were in step .
So the theory appeared to have some support.

However since 1998 and the present (almost 14 years) ACO2 has continued to rise yet global average near surface temperatures have stayed constant or if anything dropped.
This is only one of the flaws in the greenhouse theory.

So to many, like Gerhard Kramm the greenhouse theory conjecture has no merits and should be dropped.

..If, according to realclimate, “Koch and Ångström had examined the changes over the range between a 10cm and 1 meter tube, they probably would have been able to determine the correct law for increase of absorption with amount, despite the primitive instruments available at the time,” did no one later take up that experiment and do it properly? For an example.

On that specific point, yes. Of course! The literature on measurements of CO2 absorption is extensive.

For example, if you take a look at The HITRAN 2004 Molecular Spectroscopic Database you can see references to lots of earlier, and recent, literature on CO2 absorption. The HITRAN database has been built on experimental work by 1000s of researchers and decades of work.

The specific point of the realclimate article was the actual absorption by CO2 vs erroneous measurements. The correct result set, by itself, doesn’t create the ‘proof’ of the ‘greenhouse’ effect, as Pekka explained just now.

It is just one component of the ‘greenhouse’ effect. Every aspect of the ‘greenhouse’ effect is disputed by ill-informed “skeptics”.

What Prevost got right and what not right is only of historical interest. The present understanding is hugely superior. In some respects it agrees with Prevost and in some others it does not. That’s all we need to know about Prevost theories unless we study the history of science rather than science.

All present understanding is best on theories that have been refined during the 20th century. Without quantum mechanics it was not possible to describe consistently the basic physics on which the present understanding is based. The earlier great physicists were essential for the development of physics but present physics is present physics, not dependent on the earlier one.

Nothing in the present basic physics is axiomatic, all is thoroughly tested and verified by laboratory experiments. The agreement is really accurate on all points where testing is possible. The present physics is limited in two ways:

– It cannot explain at all some phenomena, but those are really remote from everyday applications. Such phenomena occur inside atomic nuclei and in black holes, but not in anything we can observe in our surrounding

– Complex systems cannot be analyzed in full. This is a practical limitation and affects strongly what we know about the atmosphere. It does, however, not prevent us from knowing a lot about the atmosphere as well.

The issues you mention are perfectly understood. There’s nothing uncertain or genuinely controversial on those. Only people who don’t understand physics think otherwise.

I think there is a simulation of the GHE that can be tested in lab. As I see it, the basic issue is that the IR emission is limited in power by the temperature of last gas to which it is meaningfully exposed: If this is temperature is reduced, the power radiated away is also reduced.

So if you set up a long tube of gas with the left-hand side kept at temperature T-L and the right-hand side kept at temperature T-R, this creates a temperature gradient. You can set up an IR source that shines into the left side and is detected on the right side. The IR received on the right should reflect the temperature at the distance of optical depth = 1 from the right.

Now if you pump more CO2 into the tube, the OD=1 point will move to the right, which will be colder than where it was before. The IR power received on the right should be correspondingly reduced.

This is a simulation in that we are replacing the temperature gradient produced by atmospheric motion (the adiabatic lapse rate) by a laboratory-imposed temperature gradient, to reduce the spatial dimension required to demonstrate it (and also so the gradient can be horizontal instead of vertical: easier to construct). But the effective agent, the increased CO2, will be the same in both cases.

Does anybody see a flaw in this simulation?

I don’t know if anyone has specifically set out to do this demo; but I don’t think there can be much doubt about how it would turn out.

If both T-L and T-R are above room temperature (T-L > T-R > room temp), maintaining both of them would require heating anyway. Now if we add the extra CO2, less heating should be required to maintain these temperatures.

I would change the experiment to a vertical tube with the top hotter than the bottom. That way you don’t have to worry about convective mixing. You might be able to do a model of the experiment at SpectralCalc.com. You can put up to six cells in series with different conditions and lengths for each cell. But you have to subscribe to do that @ $49 for one month.

I just wanted to send you a quick mail to let you know that we have just conducted a very interesting interview with the well known figure in the climate debate Anthony Watts.
It’s a very interesting chat and whether you agree or disagree with his comments I thought you and your readers would find some value in taking a look

A few of the topics we discussed are:

• The difference between “global warming” and “climate change”
• Why CO2 is partially responsible but oversold
• Why recent major weather events cannot be linked to CO2
• Why we should be more worried about another ice age
• Why carbon taxes won’t have any effect on the whims of Mother Nature
• How the climate debate has taken on religious proportions
• Why the Keystone protests are all for show
• Why Mother Nature will be the final arbiter of truth
• What we should and shouldn’t be doing to address global warming
• Why “climate change” has become a favorite bogeyman
• Why scientifically we’ve only scratched the surface of climate change

One obvious answer is Pierrehumbert’s Principles of Planetary Climate. It does not cover everything essential but it fits well your specification of being suitable with a physics degree and with plenty of examples to work through. From the observation that the book has 650 pages, and still skips totally many important subfields, we can infer that one has to read a lot and to work through a lot of material to reach the level to reach a good level of understanding of atmospheric sciences.

Starting to learn about atmosphere and climate as a physicist may require also reading some other material to cover at least superficially areas that are not presented in Pierrehumbert’s book. I chose more or less randomly the book Wallace and Hobbs: Atmospheric Science, An Introductory Survey. The preface tells that the book is an introductory survey for junior or senior undergraduate level and beginning graduate level. I like the book, but have no basis for say that it would be any better or even as good as some alternatives.

There’s also quite a lot of good course material available on the net. The one that I know best is Rodrigo Caballero: Physics of the atmosphere. It’s not as comprehensive as a full textbook (only 150 pages), but then it’s totally free and covers a fair part of the most important issues.

The other main area of climate science not covered in Pierrehumbert’s book is the general circulation. I’m not sure of the best book to recommend. A good starting point is Atmosphere, Ocean and Climate Dynamics by Marshall & Plumb. It depends what you already know about atmospheric thermodynamics and fluid mechanics in a rotating frame as to whether it is a recap or a starting point.

I’ve found other books that then get you to subject matter of modern climate science papers – like The Global Circulation of the Atmosphere by Schneider & Sobel – but there is a gap from Marshall & Plumb to these texts.

Introduction to Dynamic Meteorology by James Holton is very good, but I still struggle to understand potential vorticity, baroclinic instability and other tricky subjects.

The chapter on Atmospheric Dynamics in Wallace and Hobbs refers also to Holton as follows:

The remainder of this section introduces the student to more advanced dynamical concepts that are not essential for understanding the subsequent sections of this chapter. For more thorough and rigorous treatment of this material, see J.R. Holton. Introduction to Dynamical Meteorology, 4th Edition, Academic Press (2004).

Wallace and Hobbs is published by Academic Press as well, which might influence the recommendation.

The advanced concepts of the remainder of the section are
– Suppression of Vertical Motions by Planetary Rotation
– A Conservation Law for Vorticity
– Potential Vorticity

Taking into account, what SoD wrote above, it should not be a surprise that the five pages allocated for these concepts by Wallace and Hobbs can only hint on the full content of the theories involved.

” About 41.8% of reported average global temperature change results from natural ocean surface temperature oscillation and 58.2% results from change in the rate that the planet radiates energy to outer space, as calculated using a proxy, which is the time-integral of sunspot numbers. Using just these two factors explains average global temperatures (least biased values based on HadCRUT4 and other credible measurements) since before 1900 with 89.82% accuracy (R2=0.8982).

If atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is included in the calculation, it might account for about 7.5% of reported average global temperature (AGT) change. If CO2 has that much influence, then the calculated ocean surface temperature effect decreases to about 40.1% and sunspot influence decreases to about 52.4%, but accuracy increases an insignificant amount to 89.91%. This miniscule increase in accuracy indicates that CO2 change probably has substantially less than even 7.5% influence on average global temperature change. . . . . . {and so on and so forth}”

Peter: The equation at the website you cite is physically unreasonable. Since there is no exponential decay factor in the sunspot term, usually high or low numbers of sunspots that occurred in 1900 would still be expected to influence the temperature anomaly today and in 2100. The formula arbitrarily starts counting sunspots in 1895; why not 1935 or during the Maunder minimum, when there were no sunspots. Given enough different types of data and adjustable parameters, one can find an equation that produces a reasonable fit to almost any data series, but that doesn’t mean the equation will be able to predict the future.

How do sunspots – in 1895 or in 1985 or today – change the current climate? We know from satellites in space that the total energy reaching the upper atmosphere only changes about 1 W/m2 (or 0.1%) in recent cycles. One can derive the following relationship from the Stefan-Boltzmann equation: dW/W = 4*(dT/T). An 0.1% change in incoming radiation will produce an equilibrium warming of 0.025% or about 0.1 degK. Although total radiation has changed recently by only 0.1%, the increase in the small amount of radiation at UV wavelengths increases by a much larger factor and the increase in high energy particles is even more dramatic. Neither UV nor particles reach the surface. There is at least one paper suggesting that the change in UV (which makes ozone and heats the stratosphere) produces changes in winds in the upper atmosphere that have effects on the surface. There is lots of speculation about high energy particles and cloud formation. So the solar cycle could influence our climate in a number of ways; but the change expected from the most straightforward mechanism – total energy reaching the earth – is small. This NASA web page covers some of this in more detail.

There are more worthless models in the blogosphere than anyone can debunk. Some of the wrong models appear reasonable enough and raise enough interest to make debunking justified, most are not worth that effort.

James McC’s calculation is wrong because he assumes that the radiative imbalance from doubling CO2 is the same at the surface as it is at the TOA. It isn’t. If you double CO2 and increase the emission of radiation at the surface by 3.7 W/m², there will still be a radiative imbalance at the tropopause. In fact, you will have only reduced the imbalance by about half. What he appears to have forgotten is that when the surface warms, the atmosphere warms too. That increases downwelling radiation at the surface so the net increase in upward radiation is reduced.

If you set the humidity in MODTRAN to constant RH rather than constant pressure, you need a larger change in surface temperature.

What about my own calculation (which is in effect the same as SOD’s in CO2-part-seven)? Is it a reasonable linear approximation to assume a constant quotient of outgoing surface radiation and radiation at ToA (or tropopause) or does ist contain another flaw?
In my MODTRAN tests I wanted to increase only the temperature in order to see the effect of double CO2 without feedbacks. Constant RH means more water vapor, doesn’t it?

Is it a reasonable linear approximation to assume a constant quotient of outgoing surface radiation and radiation at ToA (or tropopause) or does it contain another flaw?

It does seem to work. And constant relative humidity does increase the specific humidity as the temperature increases so it’s an approximation to water vapor feedback. But the lapse rate doesn’t change with specific humidity in MODTRAN, which it’s expected to do in the real world. There’s some controversy about that, though. We don’t seem to be observing the predicted tropical upper troposphere hot spot.

Science of Doom, it’s been well over a year since I last stopped here (maybe even two or more years) and I have a lot to catch up on (and the winter months now to do it).

Meanwhile — even though it appears to be against protocol — I’m going to ask it anyway: based on all of your study and your writings to date, and even considering the issues of climate “opinion” and climate “religion”, what are your best bottom-line conclusions regarding AGW and attendant concerns?

I very much appreciate the education I’m getting from many of the posts … mostly by the site’s author.

Question on the Svensmark effect, i.e. cosmic particle energy causing ionization, in turn eventually leading to “cluster” formation (of water) and ultimately to cloud droplets:

Here we have a source of energy separate from the sun which doesn’t appear to be covered in the (admittedly limited) number of posts I’ve seen thus far.

The case of interest, of course, is that of a fairly high particle flux which would be expected when (as now) the solar system is within a Galactic arm or spur and simultaneously with a fairly quiet sun. Can anyone point to an assessment of the energy thus applied to the atmosphere in terms of its effect on the magnitude of the factors making up the, presumably, “new” energy balance (as compared with the situation prior to accounting for the particle flux)?

Sorry that I have no source handy for an estimate of the particle flux itself under these conditions, much less what fraction actually give up energy for ionization prior to impacting the Earth’s surface … but assume that Svensmark and his team, and possibly others, have made such estimates and/or measurements.

Science of Doom!
Love your philosophy and depth. Can’t wait to delve into the information you have here.
One request if I may… could you expound on the whole subject of “ocean acidification”?
The usual approach is that anthropogenic CO2 will turn the oceans to acid.
But doesn’t the amount of calcium carbonate in the oceans act as a buffer to make this prospect impossible?
I would value more understanding in this area and it would be great to find some succint way to summarize why the acidification scare is not likely or not possible.
Many thanks!

The pKa of CO2 is too high together with its solubility is too low to effect much pH change. Fabricius measured pH at a PNG volcanic seep, ie undersea, continually exuding CO2, ie saturated seawater. She found the pH dropped from ca 8.1 to 7.7 – hardly earth-shattering even in this most extreme circumstance which would require atmosheric CO2 to be at asphyxiating levels.

Experiments have shown that ocean acidification due to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations has deleterious effects on the performance of many marine organisms[1, 2, 3, 4]. However, few empirical or modelling studies have addressed the long-term consequences of ocean acidification for marine ecosystems[5, 6, 7]. Here we show that as pH declines from 8.1 to 7.8 (the change expected if atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations increase from 390 to 750 ppm, consistent with some scenarios for the end of this century) some organisms benefit, but many more lose out. We investigated coral reefs, seagrasses and sediments that are acclimatized to low pH at three cool and shallow volcanic carbon dioxide seeps in Papua New Guinea. At reduced pH, we observed reductions in coral diversity, recruitment and abundances of structurally complex framework builders, and shifts in competitive interactions between taxa. However, coral cover remained constant between pH 8.1 and ~7.8, because massive Porites corals established dominance over structural corals, despite low rates of calcification. Reef development ceased below pH 7.7. Our empirical data from this unique field setting confirm model predictions that ocean acidification, together with temperature stress, will probably lead to severely reduced diversity, structural complexity and resilience of Indo-Pacific coral reefs within this century.

The abstract doesn’t give the same happy-go-lucky impression as you display.

nealjking: You write
“The abstract doesn’t give the same happy-go-lucky impression as you display”

I tried to keep things simple to reduce the hype surrounding various claims about CO2. pH calculations in an open system such as ocean waters are non-trivial, whereas data are as they are. I therefore used published data, in this Fabricius case, of extreme CO2 concentrations which will never occur – unless there’s a catastrophic event, in which case, we’d have greater things to worry about.

Fabricius has produced a (Australian SBS TV) program a few years ago entitled “Acid Oceans”. From this, one can tell which viewpoint she has. I’ve actually corresponded with her. It became apparent her experiments had some errors (due to sampling faults), and was too eager to accept these results as they fitted her preconceptions.

ALERT! Chemistry ahead!

1. For example, although the data were collected from a volcanic seep, where both CO2 and H2S are released in similar proportions, all the harmful effects – eg corrosion of test plates, stunned fish & acidity – were assigned to the large CO2 concentrations! Don’t worry about the fact that H2S is very poisonous, is corrosive, and oxidises to the strong acid H2SO4 as opposed to the very weak acid H2O/ CO2 (pKa = 6.35). The measured pH drop of 0.4 would be largely due to traces of sulphuric acid, but the data do provide a limiting value to the acidity due to CO2.
[It’s apparent Fabricius has little chemistry.]

The sampling fault.
Data were collected at various seeps in the vicinity, presumably fed by the same volcanic source. Although H2S was evident in all areas – from its distinctive rotten egg smell – some sample analyses returned no H2S. One should really have been suspicious at this stage! My guess is that the samples had been stored too long so the H2S had already oxidised (by dissolved oxygen and/or from too much air stored in the sampling jars) before analysis.

2. There has been much misleading of the public about acidification.
Very few know much of pH, so the “experts” translate it to “so many hundreds of times more acid”. Sounds much more threatening! The pH scale was introduced to prevent just such meaningless comparisons.

One such much-quoted expert is Ove Hoegh-Guldberg
(Director, Global Change Institute at The University of Queensland.)
He had input to the TV programs “Acid Oceans” and to another by David Attenborough “Death of the Oceans”. (Scary!) In both, he demonstrated CO2 acidity (allegedly) by breathing via a glass tube into a beaker of seawater – although it may have been simply tap water – with added yellowish acid/base coloured indicator to show the acid change. [Why didn’t he simply use CO2 from a cylinder?]

The indicator was probably Methyl Orange, but all such yellows turn at acidity too low for H2O/ CO2 to reach. The error is simple; I was first taught this at school. Breath is drawn from the stomach, home of the very strong hydrochloric acid, and what he’s actually measuring are traces of this acid!

3. Acid ocean areas.
I’ve noted two areas such areas. One is Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, down-current from the active submarine seismic/volcanic area around Vanuatu. Another is the tropical Pacific ca 120° to 140° E, downcurrent from probably the most volcanically active area on Earth, the East Pacific Rise.

The indicator was probably Methyl Orange, but all such yellows turn at acidity too low for H2O/ CO2 to reach. The error is simple; I was first taught this at school. Breath is drawn from the stomach, home of the very strong hydrochloric acid, and what he’s actually measuring are traces of this acid!

Sea water is too well buffered for a trace of HCl to make any difference, as pointed out below.

How do you know it was methyl orange? More likely it was methyl red with a range from pH 4.8(red) to 6.0(yellow) Human breath contains about 4% CO2 by volume. Water in equilibrium with 4% CO2 would have a pH of about 3.6. That’s not acidic enough to fully change methyl orange from yellow to red, but it would be enough to make it orange, and more than enough to make methyl red change to red.

However, I think the David Attenborough demonstration was a tad disingenuous. The concentration of CO2 in human breath is ~100 times the concentration in the atmosphere at the moment and over 70 times the concentration of doubled from preindustrial times atmospheric CO2 (560ppmv).

For any readers genuinely interested in understanding the potentially devastating threat of ocean acidification I would recommend the Skeptical Science series called OA not OK – written by experts on the subject matter.It’s heavy going, but most can simply skip to the two summaries to get a handle on what it’s about.

Reply to Rob Painting:
I didn’t read all 18 parts plus 2 summaries. From what I read, it does give a simple but incomplete description. Correct me if I’m wrong – and I’m sure you will – but I think it didn’t mention Bjerrum plots which are necessary for a quantitative result.

See OA not OK post No.8 – 170 to 1. The decline in the concentration of carbonate ions with the fall in ocean pH is perhaps the most important thing for readers to grasp, as the fall in carbonate ion abundance also lowers the calcium carbonate saturation state.

In extreme cases (carbonate undersaturation) seawater is physically corrosive to calcium carbonate forms because the equilibrium shifts to carbonate dissolution rather than formation. We’ve seen this off the coast of Oregon and Washington where corrosive seawater has reached the surface and led to the large-scale mortality of juvenile oysters in hatcheries.

Reply to Rob Painting:
1. So, Bjerrum plots are NOT discussed in SkepticalScience. As I wrote before, they are necessary for a quantitative result. If you think the discussion “written by experts on the subject matter” is heavy going, brace yourself if you read about Bjerrum!
[Oh. What expertise do these experts have? Only 2(?) show they have any in this topic, ie chemistry]

That’s why I removed such a calculation difficulty for readers and used Fabricius’ data to show the upper limits of pH drop due to CO2. Even then, in this extreme situation, most of the pH drop of 0.4 pH units was due to sulphuric acid, which is also very corrosive to carbonates – orders more so than carbonated waters. [Try putting an oyster shell into soda water.]
This will also be the case in Oregon and Washington where you have converging tectonic plates and fracture zones running along the coast, producing undersea volcanic activity. Various writers, including Fabricius, have simply assumed the oyster corrosion was due to CO2. The juveniles are probably being poisoned naturally by H2S that hasn’t yet oxidised; it’s a slow process, taking days for a noticeable effect. Undersea volcanic H2S evolved near Vanuatu is the likely cause of coral bleaching to downstream Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

2. Figure 3 of your reference contains a common beginner’s error. H2CO3 (green curve) is never the major species in a CO2/H2O solution; it represents about one part per thousand. Quite an error! Therefore, use the data when available especially if one doesn’t know the theory!

Readers can see in that as seawater pH declines so too does the carbonate ion (CO32-) abundance. This occurs because the extra hydrogen ions (acidification) react with carbonate ions to form bicarbonate (HCO3-) – which is reflected in the increase in bicarbonate in the plot. It’s this process which leads to calcium carbonate undersaturation and thus seawater becoming corrosive to calcium carbonate shells and skeletons.

The reason that the Pacific coast of North America is prone to highly corrosive surface seawater is that is on the eastern boundary of the subtropical North Pacific gyre, and therefore subject to upwelling (Ekman suction) along the coast when the southerly winds are active. As organic matter falls to the seafloor it is decomposed by microbes which release the carbon dioxide it contains into the water column (the biological carbon pump). Southerly winds along the coast displace surface water to its right (the Coriolis effect) and layers beneath are gradually pulled to the surface to replace the displaced surface layers. Ultimately, highly corrosive seawater is drawn to the surface when these southerly winds persist.

One of the strategies the oyster hatcheries used to minimize larval oyster mortality was to monitor the intakes so that they weren’t drawing seawater in during times when the southerly winds were intense – as this seawater was undersaturated with respect to calcium carbonate and therefore corrosive to the larval oysters.

So the relevant experts have a coherent framework developed over time which matches laboratory experiments and real-world observations – rapid injections of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere lower ocean pH and carbonate saturation state together. Lower saturation states make calcification more difficult, and undersaturation results in the dissolution of calcium carbonate forms. The published scientific literature on ocean acidification numbers in the many hundreds, if not thousands, now and they tell a compelling and consistent story.

Why didn’t you mention Bjerrum previously?
Actually, the Bjerrum (Fig 3) is incorrect as I wrote before – because the H2CO3 is a factor of 1000x out. It gives the wrong pH and consequently doesn’t match data.

The rest of your reply repeats the current “theory”; odd isn’t it? My explanation is much simpler and easier to digest; no “suctions” or other complications.

Carbonated water is not that corrosive; did you try my experiment with soda water? I thought not. (Don’t use soda that contains added, eg citric, acids!)

a) “Why didn’t you mention Bjerrum previously?”
Rob Painting gave you the reference to “OA not OK” post number 8, which includes the caption for a Figure 3: “A speciation diagram for the carbonic acid system in seawater as a function of pH. The y-axis gives the fraction of each species present. A vertical line drawn at any pH value gives the relative proportion of each species. This plot is simplified to illustrate the concept; in real seawater several other factors like salinity, temperature and pressure are important.”

Looking at the Wikipedia reference (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjerrum_plot#Bjerrum_plot_equations_for_carbonate_system) for “Bjerrum plot”:
“a graph of the concentrations of the different species of a polyprotic acid in a solution, as functions of the solution’s pH, [1] when the solution is at equilibrium. Due to the many orders of magnitude spanned by the concentrations, they are commonly plotted on a logarithmic scale. Sometimes the ratios of the concentrations are plotted rather than the actual concentrations. Occasionally H+ and OH− are also plotted.”

So your problem is that the word “Bjerrum plot” wasn’t specifically used? Tell me, pjcarson2015, would the calculations in a book on quantum electrodynamics be wrong if the book omitted to use the term “Feynman diagram”, even when Feynman diagrams were used throughout?

b) With regard to the expertise of the authors:
– Keith Hunter is a professor of marine chemistry at Otago, which seems to be the best research university in New Zealand. He has 147 publications, including a textbook on acid-base chemistry of aquatic solutions
– Christina McGraw is an assistant professor of chemistry at Carlson University in Massachusetts. One focus of her research is the development of new instrumentation and techniques for field-based measurements in aquatic ecosystems.
– Doug Mackie is the lab manager for the Portobello Marine Laboratory of Otago. Formerly he was a post-doc at Otago in marine chemistry.

Since you bring the issue up: What are your bona fides relevant to this topic, pjcarson2015 ?

Reply to nealjking
1. PhD Phys Chem, Adelaide 1975. (I didn’t work – for long anyway – in an academic area, therefore no papers. I do have a site @ pjcarson2015.wordpress.com – but you will NOT like that!

There seems a great deal of overlap between those on Science of Doom and Skeptical Science. It gives the impression that more people are of this view than actually are.

2. I did ask Rob Painting about Bjerrum specifically to which he did not reply initially.

3. As you clearly have a good handle on using Bjerrum plots, tell us what pH decrease ensues from say a doubling of atmospheric CO2? (Mind, you and the authors seem comfortable with the Bjerrum of Fig3 even tho’ it has the huge error in H2CO3 concentration.)

As I‘m obviously not in the same league as these folk to do such a calculation, I just use the published data which show pH does not decrease as alarmingly as advertised …. and especially good if one uses the “enemy’s” own data.
[Of course, we are all friends here – no enemies – trying to achieve a common goal; the facts.]

4. Your Rob Painting points out the loss of juvenile oysters around USA’s northwest coast. He assigns this (I think) to sudden increases in CO2. It’s difficult to see where such a dangerous amount of CO2 would come from, especially as CO2 is generally considered to be almost uniform around the globe, apart from near cities, and allowing for a few tenths of a percent due to seasonal variations.

As I wrote previously, the oysters are probably being poisoned and weakened by undersea volcanically generated H2S, if not by local manmade pollution. I think he’s referring to the same oyster situation as that show in Fabricius’ TV doco, menacingly entitled “Acid Oceans”.

The treatment was to pour about 200kg (!) of anhydrous sodium carbonate – not bicarbonate, but the powerful alkali, carbonate – into maybe 100 tonne vats of seawater containing the oysters. This would shift the pH well past 12! Tough little fellows! Obviously such a pH change was more than a small adjustment of maybe 0.2 pH units, but the huge pH change was wiping out the more susceptible organisms attacking the oysters.

pjcarson2015:
1) n/a
2) “I did ask Rob Painting about Bjerrum specifically to which he did not reply initially.”
I don’t see how you can say that with a straight face. Your comment ended,”but I think it didn’t mention Bjerrum plots …”; and his immediate response began, “See OA not OK post No.8 – 170 to 1.” Did you look at the reference and fail to recognize Fig. 3 as a Bjerrum plot, or did you simply not bother to look at the reference; before responding with, “So, Bjerrum plots are NOT discussed in SkepticalScience.”?
3) I cheerfully admit to having flunked freshman chemistry. (I had some incentive: Richard Feynman was lecturing on quantum electrodynamics in the same timeslot.) But since you place so much emphasis on them, why didn’t Figure 3 jump out at you right away? I’m surprised it was necessary for Rob to say, “Readers will note a Bjerrum plot in figure 3 on the OA not OK post called 170 to 1 – which is the page I linked to earlier.”

That makes me reluctant to accept your claim that a graph signed off by 3 folks who have published research in the field is wrong.

2. Straight face.
Rob did point to a (inaccurate) Bjerrum, but he did not identify it. After all, there’s more than just me reading his post. Anyway, I’m not sure that he knew himself initially, and perhaps that’s why you have taken over his answers.

3. a. Yep. Feynman was interesting …. but not that helpful to OA.

b. Why is nobody on this site (or SkS) able to calculate what increases in atmospheric CO2 do to pH? You’d think that would be the very first calculation to be done in OA investigations.

It’s apparent you also do not know, but I would have thought you could at least point to such a reference to support your belief. Proponents simply assume that pH drops are due to CO2 without checking this so. As I showed, they are due to volcanically generated sulphuric acid.

“I think he’s referring to the same oyster situation as that show in Fabricius’ TV doco, menacingly entitled “Acid Oceans”

If that show dealt with the large-scale larval oyster die-off due to corrosive seawater, then yes. As explained earlier, that region is prone to upwelling of corrosive seawater from the deep as it on the eastern edge of the North Pacific subtropical gyre and thus forms part of the California Current system – where the rotation of the gyre returns water back toward the equator.

– I have not “taken over” Rob’s answers. Rob is quite familiar with the topics involved with OA, and he’s trying to maintain a focus for the discussion on the issues that would be of greater interest to other readers.

– Whereas I have not looked back at chemistry in 40-odd years, and the only thing I recall is that it’s a logarithmic function of the concentration of free protons in solution: pH = – log10([H+]) ; with some modification when multiple solutes are considered. Since I have to deal with this technical area from a position of unfamiliarity, I am trying to evaluate the plausibility of what you’re saying based on the secondary aspects of the discussion:
– whether issues are dealt with in a straightforward way
– whether the answers given seem compatible with the framework provided by experts in the field; or, if not, some evidence for a different opinion.
– how you deal with questions; consistency

– Possibly Rob would pursue a different line of discussion in an area where he had less exposure to the content of the literature. Certainly, if we were discussing a topic in physics, I would be much more confident about being able to distinguish plausible BS from sound physical reasoning, and I wouldn’t be as picky about secondary issues. Unfortunately, that is not true in chemistry: I have never been able to identify sound chemical reasoning, so I have to pay more attention to consistency issues.

============================================================
1) Perhaps a better response would have been, “OK.” It was late at night.

2) It is obvious to me that Rob expected that you would:
– Look at his reference; and
– Identify Figure 3 as what you were asking about. Since you put such a great emphasis on Bjerrum plots, I believe he assumed that you would instantly see what you were looking for. After looking at the Wikipedia article on Bjerrum plots and the example ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjerrum_plot#/media/File:Carbonate_Bjerrum.gif ), I can certainly see a clear “family resemblance” in Figure 3 ( http://www.skepticalscience.com/Mackie_OA_not_OK_post_8.html ). So it does surprise me that your response was, “So, Bjerrum plots are NOT discussed in SkepticalScience.” How did you jump to that conclusion?

3) The main chemist on this site is DeWitt Payne, who has not shown up in this discussion; possibly connected with the fact that the comment activity is not showing up on SoD’s front page for some reason.

By the way, you keep claiming that the H2CO3 fraction should never get above 1/1000. Going back to the above-mentioned Wiki article and diagram, I notice that it seems quite similar to the diagram from “OA not OK”, and has not been changed since 2010. If there really is an error in the plot, perhaps you should take it up with Wikipedia.

Reply to nealjking
1. I know you’re trying to help but why are you bothering to reply as an expert – on this OA area which requires chemical knowledge – when you admit you have little chemistry knowledge? A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

2. Wikipedia. Not my place to chase everywhere.
That particular diagram has an each way bet on its top left-hand corner wrt CO2 and H2CO3.
However, the gold standard for pH calculations is James N Butler’s 1964 (!!) book (remember them?) “Ionic Equilibrium” – although he did write an update for personal computers. Despite its age, it remains THE reference. Page 207 describes the CO2/H2O equilibrium specifically. (Although I remember being taught this even in high school.)

H2CO3 has 1000x the acidity of the real CO2/H2O system! That’s going to mess one’s calculations.

3. Bjerrum. One would have thought the scientific method to pursue before one sets up a site such as this on OA would be to actually do the calculations showing how much pH shift is due to changing atmospheric CO2. Although a Bjerrum plot is shown here the calculation is not followed through with results. After SkS wanders through 18 parts plus 2 summaries, you’d think they would get to a conclusion and show results, ie pH vs CO2.

I assume this is because the calculations do not match their required result.

4. I’m not arguing that parts of the ocean have gained some acidity over the past say hundred years, but that its attribution to CO2 – or anything else – has not been established. Nature gives clues – don’t throw away data; they lie in where those parts of the ocean are located.

As I’ve written previously above, three of these are
Great Barrier Reef. Downstream from undersea volcanic Vanuatu. (Also explains toxicity – coral bleaching.)
Equatorial Pacific ca 120° to 140° E, downcurrent from probably the most volcanically active area on Earth, the East Pacific Rise.
Oregon. Proximity to submarine volcanic activity. (Also explains Rob’s “corrosive” and toxicity).

Further examples arise from extreme weather events such as this year’s Cyclone Pam. (See my website for discussion.)

1) Where have I ever said that I was posting as an expert? And where has anyone stated that only experts may post here?
What I have pointed out at this site is what anyone who reads carefully enough can see: I’ve claimed no special knowledge, all of my argument is “on the page”.

These represent the carbonate system in fresh and in sea-water respectively. Qualitatively, I don’t see much difference from the previous diagrams. Perhaps you can indicate where the factor of 1000X shows up.

3) “Bjerrum. One would have thought the scientific method to pursue before one sets up a site such as this on OA would be to actually do the calculations showing how much pH shift is due to changing atmospheric CO2. Although a Bjerrum plot is shown here the calculation is not followed through with results. After SkS wanders through 18 parts plus 2 summaries, you’d think they would get to a conclusion and show results, ie pH vs CO2.

I assume this is because the calculations do not match their required result.”

Generally the term “scientific method” applies to a general methodology of investigation and discovery, not of presentation. What one presents depends on what point one is trying to get across. Even a glance at the series is enough to establish that it is not intended to train readers to do these calculations, so much as to provide an intellectual background for understanding ocean acidification.

And indeed, a meaningful presentation of specific results would take up a lot of space. In particular, since the Bjerrum calculations are affected by temperature and salinity (according to the Wiki article), one would need quite a few diagrams to provide a representative sampling of results. There seems to be very little call for that, given that the overall goal of the series is providing intellectual background and not analytical skills. Regretfully, there is not world enough, or time, to turn the Skeptical Science site into a center for training in climate science.

4) Rob has some definite opinions on the influence of volcanic activity on measurements of oceanic acidification sensitivity. But I would rather he spoke to that himself.

The link to the Feeley et al (2008) – Evidence for upwelling of corrosive “acidified” water onto the Continental Shelf – was provided earlier. An explanation is contained in the paper:

“The extent to which the organisms are affected depends largely on the CaCO3 saturation state (W), which is the product of the concentrations of Ca2+ and CO32� divided by the apparent stoichiometric solubility product for either aragonite or calcite:

Ωarag = [Ca2+][CO32�]/K’sp_arag (1)

Ωcal = [Ca2+][CO32–]/K’sp_cal (2)

where the calcium concentration is estimated from the salinity, and the carbonate ion concentration is calculated from the dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and total alkalinity (TA) measurements (11). “In regions where Ωarag or Ωcal is > 1.0, the formation of shells and skeletons is favored. Below a value of 1.0, the water is corrosive and dissolution of pure aragonite and unprotected aragonite shells will begin to occur (Feely et al., 1988).

Recent studies have shown that in many regions of the ocean, the aragonite saturation horizon shoaled as much as 40 to 200 m as a direct consequence of the uptake of anthropogenic CO2 (Feely et al., 2004; Orr et al., 2005; Caldeira and Wickett, 2005). It is shallowest in the northeastern Pacific Ocean, only 100 to 300 m from the ocean surface, allowing for the transport of undersaturated waters onto the continental shelf during periods of upwelling.“

Rob wrote: “The link to the Feeley et al (2008) – Evidence for upwelling of corrosive “acidified” water onto the Continental Shelf – was provided earlier. An explanation is contained in the paper”

The connection between the “upwelling of corrosive acidified water” and aCO2 is indirect and may not have been “observed”.

CO2 in surface water – the mixed layer – is in equilibrium with CO2 in the atmosphere. Deeper water has a lower pH than surface water because organisms in the deeper ocean have oxidized organic material falling from the surface, producing CO2 and depleting oxygen. If surface waters are “healthy” and upwelling water is “acidified and corrosive”, this difference can be attributed to natural processes, not man.

In reality, surface waters almost certainly have changed as atmospheric CO2 has risen; you are probably assuming you know how those changes have propagated elsewhere. In your view, the ocean everywhere is becoming acidified and corrosive from “carbon pollution”! In that case, the ocean was “acidified and corrosive” throughout the hundreds of millions of years when CO2 was higher than today – often far higher. (Figure 17 at SKS conveniently omits this period.) Life dependent on the precipitation of CaCO3 evolved and thrived during this period. It is only in the past few million years that increasing “calcium pollution” expanded the area where “CaCO3 pollution” is constantly raining onto the floor of the shallow ocean. This process has removed so much CO2 from the air that the planet has been subjected to recurring devastating ice ages and came close to the point where photosynthesis shuts down (100 ppm CO2). [/sarcasm]

Although I can’t be sure, I suspect that most, if not all, of these reports of changes in calcium carbonate saturation are the output of a COMPUTER MODEL predicting how the ocean has changed – not the result of measurement. We have very little information about how ocean pH. If I remember correctly, we don’t even have a robust electrode capable of being mounted on a buoy and continuously and accurately measuring pH over a decade. About 10% of ARGO floats attempt to estimate pH using an oxygen sensor. (Oxygen level is probably being used to estimate CO2 production and thereby pH.) Unless calcium ion concentration is uniform (despite all of the living things that use it), one needs to measure both pH and Ca++ concentration in order to calculate saturation. Is anyone making such measurements?

If I understand correctly, CFCs and C14 have been used as a proxy for the movement of other “anthropogenic CO2″ through the ocean. This proxy data has been put into a model of ocean circulation that estimates how CaCO3 saturation has changed. Like any other model, this model: uses input data containing uncertainties, relies on parameters with uncertainties, and may be incomplete or contain systematic errors. Is there any observational data that demonstrates that these models can predict decadal changes in pH and CC saturation? My guess is that the science of ocean acidification is at a stage of development somewhere equivalent to AGW between Kneeling’s first measurements at Mauna Loa and the primitive climate models of the pre-satelitte era.

I think what pjcarson2015 is saying is that the solubility of CO2 limits the maximum concentration of H2CO3 at 400ppmv in air to be much, much less than the concentration of bicarbonate ion. So any Bjerrum diagram that shows carbonic acid concentration or carbonic acid plus dissolved CO2 reaching the same concentration as bicarbonate ion as the pH decreases is wrong. It would only be correct in a sealed system, which the ocean near the surface isn’t.

I wouldn’t say not attainable except for very low pH because carbonic acid is still a weak acid. The real problem is that a Bjerrum plot assumes that pH is an independent variable and that the total inorganic carbon content is a constant. Neither assumption is correct in the case of CO2, bicarbonate and carbonate in water exposed to air with variable pCO2. To lower the pH, you need to raise the partial pressure of CO2. That, in turn, increases the total inorganic carbon content, although not by much when the pH is far to the alkaline side of the carbonic acid/bicarbonate pKa.

Since you’re making the system more acidic by adding CO2, the bicarbonate concentration will never decrease as the pH decreases. Every proton that neutralizes a bicarbonate ion to carbonic acid came from a carbonic acid molecule, thus generating a bicarbonate ion. The pH will then always be proportional to -log[pCO2]. Doubling pCO2 will decrease the pH by ~0.3 units absent biological activity and suspended solid carbonate salts. To get to ~pH 6, for example, would require a CO2 partial pressure increase of ~2 orders of magnitude.

Some or all of the factor of 1000 may refer to the fact that equilibrium in the reaction CO2+H2O H2CO3 lies far on the left side (Keq = 1.7*10^-3). When discussing the pKa of H2CO3, two different values are used

pKa = [H+][HCO3-]/[H2CO3]
pKa* = [H+][HCO3-]/[CO2]

where [CO2] is calculated using Henry’s Law. 1000 ppm of CO2 gives about 30 mM [CO2] and 0.05 mM [H2CO3].

The Bjerrum plot shown at SkS is not wrong, no factors of 1000 are missing, but it may be misleading by showing the wide range of pH values, when only a narrow range close to pH = 8 is relevant in practice. The plot of Wikipedia

tells perhaps best on that by showing in blue the relevant range. Over that range CO2 concentration is very low and bicarbonate ion concentration is about ten times higher than carbonate ion concentration. Changes in pH affect strongly both the CO2 and carbonate ion concentration, which means also that
– large changes in CO2 concentration are needed for numerically significant changes in pH
– the relative changes in carbonate concentration are approximately equal to the relative changes in CO2 concentration, but in opposite direction.

Trace amounts of strong acids like sulphuric acid do not lead to large changes in pH in buffered solutions like sea water. What pjcarson wrote on that is at least misleading, if not outright wrong.

The buffer system for sea water and CO2 in air is bicarbonate/carbonate, not bicarbonate/carbonic acid. I’m not sure buffer capacity has meaning as a function of pCO2. It may have some meaning for pCO2 as a function of CO2 emissions, though.

The concept of buffering is less useful, when all we discuss are weak acids and bases. The carbon chemistry is controlled by many different equilibrium constants that apply to all the possible reactions, and many of these equlibriums change significantly when CO2 is added of some other change in external conditions takes place.

I brought up buffering as a factor that makes the influence of trace amounts of strong acids small (much, much smaller than for pure water). For that argument it does not matter, which reactions dominate in the buffering as long as buffering is present, as it is in the sea water that contains realistic amounts of inorganic carbon.

Pekka.
1. If one uses H2CO3 (Ka= 1.7 x 10[-4] in calculations, there will be an error factor of ca 1000x. because it is present in only about one in a thousand. One should use CO2/H2O (Ka= 4.4 x 10[-7].

2. In a similar vein, trace sulphuric (pKa= -3) effects pH changes much more than even large quantities of CO2. We’re looking at pH changes of say 0.2. Not misleading at all.

1. And that’s what’s used in the Bjerrum plots above. The effective pKa of dissolved CO2 , referred to as H2CO3*, is ~6.3 in pure water and ~5.9 in seawater.

2. Define trace in moles/liter. In pure water, you might be correct. But sea water contains dissolved carbonate and bicarbonate ions, which is why the pH of sea water is closer to 8 than the ~5.6 that it would be at equilibrium with 400ppmv CO2 in the absence of ~2mM bicarbonate. Those ions will absorb protons from the sulfuric acid and reduce the rate of pH change. That’s called buffering.

Thanks for your replies.
1. I said “probably Methyl Orange” – because
• it looked like it. (I’ve never liked using it as I have Daltonism – which is appropriate – and always had difficulty picking the end-point. Can cause difficulties to one running analytical lab for a couple of years, as I did. )
• Also because it’s commonly available, particularly to a non-Chemist.
• And you’re right; CO2 will not cause a Methyl Orange change. Therefore….?

Furthermore, the water Ove used did not bubble, as seawater would, when he blew through it; probably plain water or with salt (NaCl) added so that he could say “salt” water for some credibility purposes.

2. Traces of HCl (pKa = -8) are much more able (by a factor of 10 to 14th) to change pH than traces of CO2/H2O (pKa= +6.35). Breath will change the indicator Methyl Orange; it’s done regularly in high school. (Therefore there’s something more acidic than CO2 in it.)

3. The limiting factor for CO2 is not its percentage in the air but its solubility (1.45g/l @ 25C, ie 0.033M, but varies with salinity, etc).

Furthermore, the water Ove used did not bubble, as seawater would, when he blew through it;

Do you mean foam rather than bubble? If air was blown through water, there must have been bubbles. Foaming would depend on the organic content, which would vary a lot depending on the sampling location. As long as the water contained the correct amounts of carbonate and bicarbonate ions and sodium chloride, the experiment would still be valid.

DeWitt Payne.
Yes, foaming is better.
My point is that Ove was probably NOT using seawater, and very unlikely to have taken the trouble of reconstructing it. He’s located at James Cook, near the seafront!

The first approximation is obtained by assuming that bicarbonate ion concentration remains unchanged and CO2 concentration doubles in surface ocean following Henry’s law. That implies that hydrogen ion concentration doubles as well and pH drops by 0.3.

Going beyond that first approximation is more difficult, because the bicarbonate ion concentration does not stay exactly unchanged and because the changes in that depend on further details of ocean chemistry, which are not the same in all parts of the ocean and which are also incompletely known. The dynamics of the carbon cycle lead also to deviations from Henry’s law.

Here’s a little experiment you can do at home with minimal expenditure. Buy a cheap aquarium air pump, tubing and a diffuser stone, a gallon of purified natural sea water and some pH 4.5-10 test strips. Everything but the test strips are probably available at your local pet store. You can buy them here. Test strips may be available at the pet store too, but these are a lot better.

1. Measure the pH of the sea water.

2. Take a pint of the sea water and boil it.

3. Quickly cool the boiled water, preferably covered, and measure the pH. You might be able to use the test strip in the hot water, I’m not sure.

4. Now using the aquarium pump, tubing and stone, blow air through the sea water and measure the pH at intervals.

5. Explain your results.

Or you could tell me what you expect to happen at each step. It should be obvious to anyone who has had general chemistry.

For extra credit, buy some Perrier sparkling water or make some carbonated water using distilled water and a carbonator. The Hamilton Beach Fizzini is inexpensive and readily available. Add some of that to the sea water and measure the pH. For a control, boil the sparkling water, cool, add that to a fresh batch of sea water and measure the pH.

DeWitt Payne.
Let’s assume you have actually done this experiment yourself. :)
What are your results?
Secondly: What’s the aim of your proposed experiment? And how does this relate to any realistic case?

You suggest to unrealistic pump an endless supply of air through a fixed quantity of seawater (ie a closed system), that will eventually remove its buffering potential so that its final pH will be near that of a weak bicarbonate solution exposed to air. For what it’s worth, the result is pH=5•1. (This will still not turn methyl orange.)

Any realistic seawater circumstance would have carbonate as well so that its pH will be greater. Now you tell me; what’s the result?

I’m coming late to this discussion, so pardon if I missed some of the details already covered.
I see some confusion arising because aquatic chemists usually combine dissolved CO2 and H2CO3 (sometimes denoted H2CO3*). Most H2CO3* is in the form of dissolved CO2, but combining them makes the calculations easier and introduces no error.

Frank – “In that case, the ocean was “acidified and corrosive” throughout the hundreds of millions of years when CO2 was higher than today – often far higher“.

No, that is wrong. It is a common mistake though. That’s why it’s important to read through and process the entire 18-part series OA not OK. People get so hung up on pH and overlook the effect saturation state has on calcification.

Geologically-rapid pulses of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere result in pH and calcium carbonate saturation state declining in tandem. Carbonate ion abundance declines and seawater becomes undersaturated (i.e. corrosive). Over longer timescales, chemical weathering supplies dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) back to the ocean which elevates the carbonate ion abundance and thus the carbonate saturation state. In this second scenario pH and saturation state follow different trajectories. Dissolution of carbonate sediments as the lysocline shoals also aids the recovery from ocean acidification events too.

Perhaps the clearest examples of robust calcification during times of high and sustained atmospheric CO2 are the White Cliffs of Dover in England and the proliferation of rudist reefs (giant shellfish) during the Cretaceous Period. The cliffs are made up of the calcium carbonate shells of tiny phytoplankton called coccolithophores. Geologic carbon cycle modelling suggests the saturation state back then was much higher than present-day, so seawater highly conducive to calcification is exactly what we would expect.

It’s no coincidence that ancient (and natural) ocean acidification events in Earth’s past were only associated with relatively rapid pulses of CO2 into the atmosphere and not with gradual or sustained changes. This is amply demonstrated in this picture of an ancient marine calcifier. Prior to the carbon dioxide pulse which accompanied the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), atmospheric carbon dioxide was high, but so too was the carbonate ion abundance, and thus the image on the left-hand side shows healthy calcification. With the CO2 pulse of the PETM, pH declines and carbonate ion abundance does too. The result is a decline in the calcium carbonate state and therefore parts of the ocean become corrosive to calcifiers. This is reflected in the pitted appearance of the ancient marine calcifier in the right-hand image.

Rob: Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I fully realize that higher CO2 will lower pH modestly and under-saturate CaCO3 in some locations. (For example, it is my understanding that the shallower ocean floor accumulates CaCO3 fossils, but that they dissolve in the deeper ocean where the pH is modestly lower.) However, as best I can tell, you haven’t explained why high CO2 levels produced by nature in the past were OK*, but high levels caused by man are not OK. *If past levels were not OK, what do we know about the range and catastrophic loss (PETM) of CaCO3-utilizing organisms in the past?

I’m also interested in exactly how pH and Ca++ saturation in the mixed layer are expected to change with CO2. Graphs of pH vs pCO2 and equilibrium solubility of Ca++ vs pCO2 would be wonderful (with a band showing typical Ca++ concentration). The mixed layer is the only place where equilibrium calculations make sense to me (but I know saturation decreases with depth).

When you have published 18 posts without such key information, I wonder about the severity of the problem.

“When you have published 18 posts without such key information, I wonder about the severity of the problem.”

That makes no sense whatsoever. The potential severity of the problem follows from research intimating ocean acidification as a likely kill mechanism in at least 3 of Earth’s 5 major extinction events and the mortality of marine calcifiers from corrosive seawater taking place in modern times – such as the large-scale die-off of larval oysters along the coasts of Washington and Oregon in the US.

Here’s another quick experiment to demonstrate whether it’s CO2 or stomach acid that’s causing acidification. Blow your breath through two tubes of sea water in series each containing the same indicator dye. A trace of HCl won’t get past the first tube.

Pjcarson, have I understood correctly that you doubt that the absorption of atmospheric fossil CO2 has lead to a decrease in ocean pH and changes in concentrations other CO2 species?
Me: Doug Mackie, lead author on the sketical science ‘OA not OK’ series mentioned here

dougmackie
If one includes the word “significant”: Yes. Can you prove that it is significant?
One would have thought that such proof would have been necessary before calling “Doom”. Your “co-board” member, Sarah, suggests that you can’t.

That’s why I have used data (Fabricius) – showing insignificance even in an extreme environment – from the start of my participation here.

[BTW Sarah. Thanks for your reference to Lower. Additionally, do you have references to the faster polar acidification. You may see from my previous replies of the faster acidification in a particular equatorial region which gives the clue to my deductions of a bigger cause than CO2.]

What parts of this do you not accept? Is it the mechanism (that fossil fuel CO2 enters the ocean and causes a change in carbonate species and pH? Is it that such a change is significant?

Since it is irrefutable that a decrease in oceanic pH has been observed I need to clarify: The decrease is on the order of 0.11 pH units since pre-industrial times (global average). That is, the [H3O+] has increased by 29%. This is a significant change to for any parameter. Therefore, I assume you do not accept that fossil fuel CO2 is responsible. Does this represent your belief correctly?

Then we must begin with the basics.
Again, it is irrefutable that atmospheric CO2 has increased since pre-industrial times.
Curiously however, the amount of fossil fuel burned has produced more CO2 than is found in the atmosphere.
Henry’s Law shows us that a substantial portion of that CO2 must have ended up in the ocean.

Once in the ocean the CO2 undergoes the series of reactions I have described at length. Yes there has been some buffering. By definition this buffering has depleted by concentration of carbonate and increased the concentration of bicarbonate. Carbonate concentration has decreased to about 90% the preindustrial level. Again, I contend this is a significant change for any parameter. (Especially so given that the pH of 7.8 in 2100 the carbonate will be 50% preindustrial levels).

Carbonic acid is considered to be a very weak acid, because the ionization constant is (almost) always given for the combined concentration of CO2 and H2CO3. If the constant were given for H2CO3 alone, it would be larger by almost a factor of 1000. That would leave H2CO3 a weak acid, but not very weak. Soli and Byrne have observed values close to 0.001 for the ionization constant of H2CO3 excluding CO2.

Pekka. As previously pointed out.
The weak acid H2CO3 is only in trace amounts in aqueous solutions, and is usually neglected with very little – unmeasurable – error.
H2CO3* (or as I prefer CO2/H2O) is the major species (about 1000x more) and with pKa=6.35 is a very weak acid.

A well known amount of CO2 has been produced by fossil fuel burning (see Energy International from DoE)
Less CO2 than this amount is present in the atmosphere, i.e. some is “missing”.
The difference has gone mostly into the oceans (Henry’s Law).
As calculators like CO2sys will show, the observed change in atmospheric pCO2 corresponds to the observed changes in ocean pH and other carbonate species.
To convert atmospheric pCO2 to masses of CO2, use the values given in the OA not OK book

dougmackie …. again:
Yes I know there’s lot of CO2 produced by burning fuel – from 290ppm to 400ppm. BUT …
What are your calculated pH change resulting from doubling atmospheric CO2? You say I can do the calculations myself – which is ducking the issue – but you are the expert, having written the 18-part OA manual. As I stated previously, I prefer to use the Fabricius data.

Mackie’s booklet is not a manual (a “how to”) but a backgrounder. I guess Doug assumed that someone with a PhD in Chemistry would be able to figure out how to use professional software intended for calculations of that type. Evidently, he assumed too much.

It was noticeable that your level of questioning nose-dived when Mackie showed up, and only came back up after he gave up on waiting for responses from you. If I had been in your shoes, I would have been asking more questions and pushing the calculated results. Instead, you seemed to go into box-turtle mode.

Reply to nealjking (19Jul15, 5:38pm).
1. I don’t need the crutch of software for these “chemical accountancy” calculations.

2. I was simply asking Mackie for his pH calculations as he’d surely have done these before espousing that CO2 causes “OA”. 
OA is merely localised areas of acidification. I was interested to see if his calculations match the actual data such as I prefer.

3. I’ll be getting around to clarifying my pH discussion on “Planet Earth Climate Topics”. It leads to clues for El Nino.

SoD –
You say elswhere “I don’t know anything about ocean chemistry..”. In the hope that this has attracted others who don’t wish to become chemists, but would like a few relevant facts, I offer the following, and a speculation/conundrum relating to ocean CO2 and ice ages.
The SkepticalScience posts on ocean acidification (OA) linked above are generally informative (SkS+), but include some statements lacking development (SkS-), and others likely to mislead (SkS^), which I’ll indicate. Carbon dioxide partial pressure = pCO2.
I address items at the system level, simplify for clarity, and assume steady-state.

> Life has been an active player down the geological ages.
Those studying the geochemical carbon cycle have had to include life in their models, such that they name it the Biogeochemical Carbon Cycle. CO2 is a co-product of marine limestone formation (SkS+); each metre thickness of limestone represents ~1t/m2 CO2 released into the upper ocean (SkS-). This indicates capability, and the long periods during which phytoplankton flourished. Those interested might review paleoclimate pCO2 estimates (eg GEOCARB III; Berner et al) against ages of various marine limestones.

> Limestone-using organisms generally exist in a limestone environment –
Phytoplankton in a suspension of their skeletons, coral reefs with coral sand, and shellfish by their shells. As dissolution is a surface process, provision of a large “dead” area mitigates the local effects on the “live”. This must be controlled for in relevant experiments.

> Average pH is strictly a geometric mean, so an indicator of acidity, but not quite a measure.

> SST (tropical or mean) probably has no large effect on pCO2 during a glacial epoch.
Argument: Thermohaline circulation is a closed loop, beginning with downwelling of cold water in sub-polar regions adjacent to sea ice. Water upwells in the tropics, is warmed and loses some CO2 to the (well-mixed) atmosphere. The depleted water flows to sub-polar regions, where it cools and re-absorbs its CO2. At steady-state, Down = Up for any flowrate, so pCO2 becomes that which produces this. Tropical SST influences how CO2 reaches high latitude, but not how much remains in the atmosphere (SkS^).
As downwelling temperature is ~constant throughout a glacial cycle, SST change is confined to tropical and temperate regions only.
Consider an average sq m of ocean surface. It has ~5kg CO2 above it, and ~400kg below (total, mostly as bicarbonate). A complication is settlement of biomass, which on degradation to CO2 acidifies the deep water (SkS+). This effect is not large, but enough to prevent formation of a possible 20cm of limestone. I make the reasonable assumption that this “bio-CO2″ cycle is balanced, so its only effect on the main loop is to increase the upwelled pCO2.
It follows that pCO2 is that which gives a downwelled concentration at ~2°C equal to the (nett) upwelled. If the deep water is well-mixed on a glaciation timescale, pCO2 should be constant. However, it varies consistently between 0.2mBar (stadial) and 0.3mBar (interstadial) in Vostok and EPICA cores (SkS+), so this simple model is incomplete.
The regularity of amplitude and period, with lack of drift or overshoot (on a >1k-year timescale), and the constancy of upwelled water composition impose sharp constraints on a possible mechanism. The form suggests a deterministic relaxation oscillator of time-constant ~100k-year locked to a “clock” (eg Milankovic effects); this is consistent with early EPICA data of the shorter 45k-year cycle with smaller amplitude.
If the change is to the ocean surface, pH of average upwelled water must vary by a consistent ~0.2 units. I think we need much more data from OCO-2, to indicate where to sample.

Peter: Interesting stuff. You wrote: “Limestone-using organisms generally exist in a limestone environment – Phytoplankton in a suspension of their skeletons, coral reefs with coral sand, and shellfish by their shells. As dissolution is a surface process, provision of a large “dead” area mitigates the local effects on the “live”. This must be controlled for in relevant experiments.

Many species also control calcium concentration by active transport and catalyze deposition of CaCO3 (or calcium phosphate) in specific locations. Plenty of shellfish and plankton live in freshwater and brackish water, which I assume are undersaturated in calcium as well as low in salinity. As best I can tell, they don’t find such water “corrosive”, even though thermodynamics dictates that corrosion will be their fate after death. Some of the most productive aquatic ecosystems on the planet are found in such coastal marshes. Do you know whether most species depend on supersaturation? Life that depends on calcium carbonate evolved and thrived on Earth for millions of year when CO2 was several times higher than today. I suspect life dependent on CaCO3 first evolved where calcium was saturated and deposition didn’t require expenditure of energy, but later adapted to live in less hospitable regions. Most of the time, the planet has been less hospitable to such life than it is today or will be in 2100, but this generality doesn’t tell us what will happen as ocean pH falls.

Peter also wrote: “Consider an average sq m of ocean surface. It has ~5kg CO2 above it, and ~400kg below (total, mostly as bicarbonate).”

Around pH most carbonate species is in the bicarbonate form, with H2CO3 being about 1% of HCO3-. However, there is about 600 times as much CO2(aq) present at equilibrium as H2CO3, implying roughly 6 times as much CO2(aq) as HCO3-. Am I missing something? When people discuss dissolved inorganic carbonate (DIC), are they including CO2(aq)?

Peter also wrote: “It follows that pCO2 is that which gives a downwelled concentration at ~2°C equal to the (nett) upwelled. If the deep water is well-mixed on a glaciation timescale, pCO2 should be constant. However, it varies consistently between 0.2mBar (stadial) and 0.3mBar (interstadial) in Vostok and EPICA cores (SkS+), so this simple model is incomplete.”

I’m not sure why you assume that the equilibrium amount of CO2 in all of the ocean is controlled by deepwater formation. You know, of course, that the mixed layer is in equilibrium with the atmosphere. Markers for CO2 transport (CFCs and C14) are penetrating below the mixed layer everywhere, not just where deepwater is being formed. Likewise, measurements show that heat is being transported below the mixed layer everywhere. There are a deep water regions whose composition is determined by surface conditions where deepwater forms, but there is a large amount of stratified ocean above this deepwater – and only a smaller fraction of the upper ocean appears to be well-mixed with water upwelling from below.

I’m not sure I understand your issues. Perhaps they can be clarified before Doug comes back, to save a little time:

a) Two comments that seem to form one issue:

“> Life has been an active player down the geological ages.”

“> Limestone-using organisms generally exist in a limestone environment
–
Phytoplankton in a suspension of their skeletons, coral reefs with coral sand, and shellfish by their shells. As dissolution is a surface process, provision of a large ‘dead’ area mitigates the local effects on the ‘live’. This must be controlled for in relevant experiments.”

Qa: If the living critters can’t create their shells, why should the shells of the dead persist?

b)
“> Average pH is strictly a geometric mean, so an indicator of acidity, but not quite a measure.”

Qb: And that changes things how?

c)
“> SST (tropical or mean) probably has no large effect on pCO2 during a glacial epoch.”

Qc:
– If you assume “At steady-state, Down = Up for any flowrate, so pCO2 becomes that which produces this.”, aren’t you already assuming that this is a steady state? But the reason we’re discussing the issue of increasing CO2 is because it is measured to be increasing in the atmosphere, quite steadily (Keeling curve, etc.). So only for very short time frames could it be considered steady-state.

Boron isotope ratios (δ11B) can be used to infer both recent as well as millennial time scale changes in the acidity, pH, and alkalinity of the ocean, which is mainly forced by atmospheric CO2 concentrations and bicarbonate ion concentration in the ocean. δ11B has been identified in corals from the southwestern Pacific to vary with ocean pH, and shows that climate variabilities such as the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) can modulate the impact of ocean acidification due to rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations [Pelejero et al., 2005].
Screen Shot of Figure 1 from Pearson and Palmer [2000] showing surface ocean pH as reconstructed from Boron isotope analysis for the past 60 million years.

Another application of δ11B in plankton shells can be used as an indirect proxy for atmospheric CO2 concentrations over the past several million years (see figure on right) [Pearson and Palmer, 2000].”

A more recent article is: Hemming & Hönisch,
“Boron Isotopes in Marine Carbonate Sediments and the pH of the Ocean”,
which you can download by searching in Google Scholar.

Nealjking: Nice references …..however!
• Borates are shown to be proxies for pH BUT it is assumed that such pH changes are due only to changes in atmospheric CO2.
• That’s obviously wrong as it disregards Earth’s known changes in volcanic activity.
• This causes changes in acidic sulphur compounds both in the atmosphere and, more particularly, in the seas.
Therefore, Hemming & Honisch’s conclusions are dubious at best.

seem to have reached ply limit for replies so this is answer to
pjcarson2015 @July 14 6.58 am

1) “pH change resulting from doubling atmospheric CO2?”
Assuming you mean what would the ocean equilibrium pH be if the atmospheric pCO2 was 560 ppm then the answer is pH = 7.9.

2) Am I to understand (from your repeated referrals to Fabricius observations) you think that an ocean pH change from 8.1 to 7.7 is not significant?
You do know that pH is a log scale?
This represents a change in [H+] of +150%
[ HCO3-] from 1900 umol/kg to 2150; +13%
[CO3–] from 180 umol/kg to 80; -55%

Doug Mackie: I have already answered your questions in my previous posts, starting 02Jul15.
To repeat: Fabricius’ data show a pH drop from 8.1 to 7.7, which is significant, but it is an impossibility for the oceans in general. It corresponds to an ocean exposed to 100% CO2, in which case we would have greater problems to deal with than oyster shells possibly dissolving

Well, of course if you just make comments in blog discussions, who’s going to bother to refute them? If you think you have something to say, write it up for proper publication: If you’re right, you will be clarifying the science for the field.

nealjking: You submitted the H&H reference so you must believe what they have written. Therefore, it’s not unreasonable that you be asked to be able to support their conclusions; that’s what blogs are about. Otherwise one is simply a cheerleader.
One can infer from your reply that you cannot.

The only thing I pointed out from the quote you provided was that H&H unthinkingly and without evidence, accepted that CO2 is the cause of OA problems.
[Otherwise, it seems a fine reference.]

I’d spend a lot of time writing to journals if I corrected all such errors – and have them rejected. Besides, I have done just that. I’ve tried to have “contrarian” scientific views published – but rejected. To answer your next criticism, I received one such rejection just 8 minutes after they received it! (From a sub-editor ; it didn’t even get to an expert reviewer.) He could not possibly have read it and then written his reply in that time. He simply read the Abstract, saw that it didn’t match his pre-conceptions, then fired off his refusal.

Consequently, I started my own (primitive) site at pjcarson2015.wordpress.com where I discuss “Planet Earth Climate Topics”, which contains that paper (Part One plus its Addendum). Judge for yourself. The science I use will be amenable to you as a physicist.

“You submitted the H&H reference so you must believe what they have written.”
No, I submitted the reference as a credible source of a Wikipedia article, since you seemed to be having trouble locating a reference.

“Therefore, it’s not unreasonable that you be asked to be able to support their conclusions; that’s what blogs are about. Otherwise one is simply a cheerleader.’

Or just possibly someone who knows how to look for references. Hint: Go to the end of the article, click on relevant titles, read; iterate.

“One can infer from your reply that you cannot.”
Considering that I’ve stated clearly that I don’t know any chemistry, that’s kind of a “duh”.

With regard to being a cheerleader: It is true that, in the absence of my own knowledge and analytical application to a scientific topic, I would place more confidence in what seems to be the accepted consensus of the professional scientists in the relevant field, than in someone I don’t know making unsupported claims about what others have missed. When I hear claims of this sort, I find it more plausible that this individual may not be as experienced in the topic as scientists (e.g., H & H) who are spending their working days and nights on this topic, and perhaps is unaware of what may be old news in the field of study.

“Besides, I have done just that. I’ve tried to have “contrarian” scientific views published – but rejected. To answer your next criticism, I received one such rejection just 8 minutes after they received it! (From a sub-editor ; it didn’t even get to an expert reviewer.) He could not possibly have read it and then written his reply in that time. He simply read the Abstract, saw that it didn’t match his pre-conceptions, then fired off his refusal.

I agree it’s outrageous that he took 8 minutes to reject the paper. 3 minutes should have sufficed. The major ideas in the paper have been known to be wrong for decades.

“Consequently, I started my own (primitive) site at pjcarson2015.wordpress.com where I discuss ‘Planet Earth Climate Topics’, which contains that paper (Part One plus its Addendum). Judge for yourself. The science I use will be amenable to you as a physicist.”

Reply to Cheerleader nealjking (19July)
1. My! My! You do get upset if you are asked to think for yourself; you prefer to just follow the AGW herd. Saves thinking – economical!

You write you would have dismissed my site’s paper(s) in less than 3 minutes. Sure! That’s because you are not interested in even considering science contrary to your faith.
For example as confirmation of your negligent reading, you write there is no Addendum.

Open your eyes! It’s there. It is referenced in BOLD. And if you DO happen to read it, you’ll find that it has some new interpretation of satellite spectrometric data. “Cyclone Pam” is also far-reaching. You will not have seen either before.

(There is no longer anything named Abstract required by journals. Its place has been taken by my introductory comments for each section – as should be obvious.

2. Which “major ideas in the paper have been known to be wrong for decades”?
You have been unable to state these either here or on my site.

3. I see you are backtracking from H&H. You can’t even support your own reference!
I analysed this paper – to respect your judgment in forwarding this reference – because not all published papers are gospel.
But then I find you seem unable to do so yourself. I think your expression is “duh”.

Reply to njk etc.
Allow my simplified thermohaline circulation model to settle (njk Qc for clarification: This is the *long-term* state over several glacial cycles, against which to assess the interstadial disturbances; the 20thC change is purely a transient in this system, not yet processed). Mass rate down = up, so steady-state pCO2 down = (nett) up, and mass rate CO2 proportional to water rate. I can see several possible mixing processes, but no “unmixing” ones for deep-ocean CO2. This gives me the simplest view that (nett) pCO2 in the upwelled water (ie entering the mixed layer, as Frank suggests) is the same before the rapid transition to interstadial as after, so can’t be a driver of the “simultaneous” rapid pCO2 increase. This is a key argument, so please try to falsify it (you’ll need both means and mechanism..:)).

That seems to leave two alternatives:
> A large terrestrial rechargeable reservoir of potential CO2 capable of rapid but controlled discharge (observable now);
> A step-change in sub-polar ocean surface pH (at constant pCO2) of -0.2 units, so raising pCO2 not by adding it but by removing less; this would obviously change our understanding of OA.

A question for the brains trust here: Does my argument survive review, and if so can you narrow the possibilities?
Nature appears to be capable of substantial mitigation or aggravation of our effects, so we need to know how.

njk Qb: My note on “average pH” was simply a general heads-up that it should be classed with “average temperature”.

===========================================================
While looking back at the “OA not OK” part 8
( http://www.skepticalscience.com/Mackie_OA_not_OK_post_8.html ),
I noticed a few points that might be relevant to the discussion above. Emphasis added:
===========================================================

Figure 3. A speciation diagram for the carbonic acid system in seawater as a function of pH. The y-axis gives the fraction of each species present. A vertical line drawn at any pH value gives the relative proportion of each species. This plot is simplified to illustrate the concept; in real seawater several other factors like salinity, temperature and pressure are important.

We can run through some example calculations. Concentrations are given as moles per kg of seawater. For prior to the industrial revolution we have taken a pH of 8.25. Other input parameters are a total dissolved inorganic carbon concentration of 2100 x10-6 mol kg-1 (total dissolved inorganic carbon is the sum of the species described in post 5, temperature = 15 deg C, and the salinity = 35. Under these conditions, which are typical for the ocean, the concentration of H2CO3, HCO3– and CO32– would have been 10 x10-6 mol kg-1­, 1830 x10-6 mol kg-1­ and 260 x10-6 mol kg-1 of seawater, respectively (Roy constants used – see below).

The calculated values add to give the total dissolved inorganic carbon of 2100 x10-6 mol kg-1 and HCO3– and CO32– are roughly in a 7:1 ratio (the carbonic acid does not really contribute, because, as expected it is 170 times less than the HCO3–). Today, a after a decrease in pH to 8.14 – and an increase of 29% in the concentration of H3O+ – typical calculated concentrations of HCO3– and CO32– are about 1880 x10-6 mol kg-1­ and 210 ×10-6 mol kg-1, respectively. You can see that HCO3– and CO32– are now roughly in 9:1 ratio. The concentration of carbonate CO32– has changed by –25% ((260-210)/210 × 100), but the concentration of bicarbonate HCO3– has only changed by 3% ((1880-1830)/1830) × 100.

We have made several simplifications here as the calculations are complex and beyond the scope of a blog post. Indeed, the full calculations are not encountered before postgraduate study. However, if you would like to try it yourself, you can download a program, written by one of us (KH) called SWCO2. It is available at the University of Otago. You will need to take some care – actual realistic values for the various entry parameters fall within a relatively narrow range. [SO THIS IS WHERE THE AUTHORS DO THE CALCULATION; OR ALLOW YOU TO RUN THEIR MODEL.]

If you do have a go yourself you will discover yet another layer of complexity: There are several sets of equilibrium constant, K, values to choose from. The reasons are complex and rest on the way that these values are determined experimentally and, though each set of values is internally consistent, each set uses a slightly different set of initial assumptions.

Now, just to further complicate things, we will introduce another equation:

Equation 12

K for this reaction is about 10-3. That is, the ratio of left to right is about 1,000:1. This means that, to a first approximation, seawater (dominated by HCO3–), has only a little bit of CO2 and CO32-. More importantly, it also shows that if we add CO2 to seawater, CO2 will spontaneously react with CO32– to form 2HCO3– because K for the reverse reaction is 103. In a later post we put some numbers to this concept.[IS THIS THE SAME FACTOR OF 1000 WE HAVE BEEN TALKING ABOUT?]

Ocean acidification is caused by absorbance of atmospheric CO2 by seawater. We now see that this acidification of surface seawater is causing the removal of CO32–:

Neal: Your plot of mole fraction at SKS (Figure 3) is somewhat misleading because it doesn’t contain what is usually the most important species in the CO2/H2CO3/HCO3-/CO3– system – which is CO2. There is always about 590 times more CO2 present than H2CO3. So CO2 is the dominant species on a mole basis through about pH 9. This is what pjcarlson was complaining about that started this discussion.

Assuming you have done your calculations correctly, the only species directly relevant to the solubility of CaCO3 is CO3– (and Ca++). and a plot of mole fraction doesn’t directly provide this value. The plots of greatest interest in deciding if “AA is not OK” are: 1) pH vs pCO2 and a plot of saturation Ca++ vs pCO2 (with a band showing the typical range of Ca++ concentration found in the ocean. I’ve never seen such plots anywhere. I tried finding the SWCO2 program you mentioned, but the link I did find didn’t work.

I once tried to work out this problem (7 equations and 7 unknowns) at Nick Stokes, but wasn’t very satisfied. Asking the right question is a challenging part of the problem. I chose to ask what the pH of the ocean would be assuming an infinite reservoir of CO2 in the atmosphere above an ocean saturated with CaCO3 – which I think is an appropriate model for the mixed layer of the ocean. The atmospheric reservoir is not infinite, of course, but today’s 400 ppm of CO2 already takes into account the amount of CO2 that has disappeared into the ocean. Applying equilibrium models to a system that is not in equilibrium can be tricky.

She states:
– “I see some confusion arising because aquatic chemists usually combine dissolved CO2 and H2CO3 (sometimes denoted H2CO3*). Most H2CO3* is in the form of dissolved CO2, but combining them makes the calculations easier and introduces no error.” So this suggests to me that there may be some convention in aquatic chemistry that is being used in Figure 3 without being fully spelled out.
– She also references http://www.aqion.de/ for software to do these calculations. The link works, anyway.

Use the program CO2sys.http://cdiac.ornl.gov/oceans/co2rprt.html
Your other q suggest unfamiliarity with the chemistry.
Find out: What is H2CO3*
Find out: What the implications of the sks eqn 12 are for presence of CO2